The whole company of them rose up and brought him before Pilate. They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting the nation, forbidding paying taxes to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”
Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered him, “So you say.”
Pilate said to the chief priests and the multitudes, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.”
But they insisted, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee even to this place.” But when Pilate heard Galilee mentioned, he asked if the man was a Galilean. When he found out that he was in Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem during those days.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 6, 7 Christ, who is now ready to suffer for the…
Christ, who is now ready to suffer for the sedition, which we raised in this world, is first of all pronounced guiltless, that it might appear that he suffered not for his own sins (which were none) but for ours.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–7 1 And the whole multitude of them arose, and…
1 And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate.
Ver. 1. See Mat 27:2; Joh 18:28.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On v1 The history of our Saviour’s examination and trial before…
The history of our Saviour’s examination and trial before Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, is recorded by all four evangelists, nor can it be distinctly and perfectly understood without the comparing together of what they all say, where our reader will find all such passages opened as occur in any of the evangelists about it, and stand in need of explication. The high priests, and the chief priests, and the elders had before determined our Saviour guilty of death, for blasphemy. They stoned Stephen in that case, Act 7:59, without carrying him before the Roman governor at all, that we read of in that history; how came it to pass that they did not so by our Saviour, but make a double work of it?
1. Some think that that was rather done in a tumult, though he was carried before the council, Act 6:12, than in a regular judicial way; for conquerors in those times, though they sometimes allowed the conquered nations courts of judicature, wherein they judged in ordinary matters according to their own laws, and had, judges of their own nations, yet ordinarily reserved capital causes to the cognizance of governors constituted by them; and this seemeth confirmed by Joh 18:31, where when Pilate said, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law, we read that the Jews replied, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.
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2. Others think that they had a power to put to death, but it was not lawful for them to put any to death upon the feast day: it was now the first day of unleavened bread. But the former seemeth more probable.
3. Or was it because they had sedition and treason to lay to his charge, which were crimes cognoscible only before the Roman governor? And possibly they were willing enough (knowing the reputation our Saviour had with the people) to lay the odium of his death upon Pilate, rather than take it upon themselves.
4. Whatever were the causes, it is most certain that it could be no otherwise, that all righteousness might be fulfilled.
Not a word of what our Saviour said could pass away. He had foretold, Mat 20:18,19; Mr 10:33,34; Lu 18:32,33, that he should not only be betrayed to the chief priests and scribes, and by them be condemned to death, but that he should be delivered to the Gentiles, to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him; and indeed that way of putting to death by crucifying could only be done by the Gentiles, and that death he was to die. In the history of our Saviour’s examination before Pilate is observable...
1. How much more justice and equity our Saviour found from a heathen, than from the Jewish churchmen: the latter condemn him without any proof, after all attempts of subornation, and seek to destroy him right or wrong; Pilate useth all endeavours to deliver him and set him at liberty.
2. How desperate the hatred is that groweth upon the account of religion in the hearts of wicked men; they prefer a person guilty of the highest immoralities and debaucheries, viz. sedition and murder, before the most innocent person that ever lived, who differed only from them in some points of religion, and those chiefly relating to traditions and ceremonies; but indeed he interpreted the will of God more strictly than their lusts would suffer them to interpret it, and lived another kind of life than they lived. Strictness and holiness of doctrine and life is that which enrages the men of the world against the preachers and professors of the gospel.
See Poole on "Mat 27:1", and following verses to Mat 27:66, more fully.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On v1 In this chapter we have a relation of the…
In this chapter we have a relation of the blackest and saddest tragedy that ever was acted upon the stage of the world, namely, the barbarous and bloody murder of the holy and innocent Jesus, by the Jews his own countrymen, the best of kings put to death by his own subjects. And the first step towards it, is his arraignment before Pilate and Herod; they post him from one to another; Pilate sends him to Herod; and Herod having made sufficient sport with him remands him to Pilate; neither of them find any fault in him worthy of death, yet neither of them would release him.
Here observe, that our Saviour, being before Pilate, answers him readily and cautiously; Art thou the King of the Jews? says Pilate. Thou sayest it, says our Saviour. Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? He replied, I am. Hence says the apostle, That Jesus Christ before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession. 1Ti 6:13
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Teaching us, that though we may, and sometimes ought, to hold our peace, when our reputation is concerned, yet we must never be silent, when the honor of God and his truth may be effectually promoted by a free and full confession.
Yet it is farther observable, that our Saviour being before Herod, would neither answer him to any question, nor work any miracle before him. This was an instance and evidence of our Lord’s great humility, in refusing to work miracles before Herod, who desired it only to gratify his curiousity. Thus do vile men abuse the power of God, desiring to see it exerted for admiration and pastime; not to be convinced or converted by it, but only to please thier foolish fancy. And as admirable was the patience and humility of Christ, and his present silence, who neither at Herod’s request, nor at the Jews importunity and false accusations, could be moved to answer anything.
Observe farther, that though Herod had murdered Christ’s forerunner, John the Baptist, and our Saviour’s own life was in danger by Herod heretofore, yet now he has him in his hands, he lets him go; only he first abuses him, and mocks him, and arrays him in a gorgeous robe, like a mock-king. Thus were all the marks of scorn imaginable put upon our dear Redeemer; yet all this jeering and sportful shame did our Lord undergo, to show what was due unto us for our sins; and also to give us an example to bear all the shame and reproach imaginable for his sake; who, for the joy that was set before him, despised the shame, Heb 12:2
Observe lastly, the wicked accusation brought in against our blessed Redeemer; We found (say they) this fellow perverting the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Caesar. Oh hellish untruth! How directly contrary to the whole curse and tenor of Christ’s life was this accusation! By his doctrine he preached up subjection to governors and government; saying, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. And by his practice he confirmed his own doctrine, working a miracle to pay tribute to Caesar. Satan could help them to draw up an indictment as black as hell, against the innocent Jesus, but all the powers of hell and darkness could not prove a tittle of it.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Our Lord Jesus was condemned as a blasphemer in…
Our Lord Jesus was condemned as a blasphemer in the spiritual court, but it was the most impotent malice that could be that this court was actuated by; for, when they had condemned him, they knew they could not put him to death, and therefore took another course.
I. They accused him before Pilate. The whole multitude of them arose, when they saw they could go no further with him in their court, and led him unto Pilate, though it was no judgment day, no assizes or sessions; and they demanded justice against him, not as a blasphemer (that was no crime that he took cognizance of), but as one disaffected to the Roman government, which they in their hearts did not look upon as any crime at all, or, if it was one, they themselves were much more chargeable with it than he was; only it would serve the turn and answer the purpose of their malice: and it is observable that that which was the pretended crime, for which they employed the Roman powers to destroy Christ, was the real crime for which the Roman powers not long after destroyed them.
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1. Here is the indictment drawn up against him (Luk 23:2), in which they pretended a zeal for Caesar, only to ingratiate themselves with Pilate, but it was all malice against Christ, and nothing else. They misrepresented him, (1.) As making the people rebel against Caesar. It was true, and Pilate knew it, that there was a general uneasiness in the people under the Roman yoke, and they wanted nothing but an opportunity to shake it off; now they would have Pilate believe that this Jesus was active to foment that general discontent, which, if the truth was known, they themselves were the aiders and abettors of: We have found him perverting the nation; as if converting them to God's government were perverting them from the civil government; whereas nothing tends more to make men good subjects than making them Christ's faithful followers. Christ had particularly taught that they ought to give tribute to Caesar, though he knew there were those that would be offended at him for it; and yet he is here falsely accused as forbidding to give tribute to Caesar. Innocency is no fence against calumny. (2.) As making himself a rival with Caesar, though the very reason why they rejected him, and would not own him to be the Messiah, was because he did not appear in worldly pomp and power, and did not set up for a temporal prince, nor offer to do any thing against Caesar; yet this is what they charged him with, that he said, he himself is Christ a king. He did say that he was Christ, and, if so, then a king, but not such a king as was ever likely to give disturbance to Caesar. When his followers would have made him a king (Joh 6:15), he declined it, though by the many miracles he wrought he made it appear that if he would have set up in competition with Caesar he would have been too hard for him.
2. His pleading to the indictment: Pilate asked him, Art thou the king of the Jews? Luk 23:3. To which he answered, Thou sayest it; that is, "It is as thou sayest, that I am entitled to the government of the Jewish nation; but in rivalship with the scribes and Pharisees, who tyrannize over them in matters of religion, not in rivalship with Caesar, whose government relates only to their civil interests." Christ's kingdom is wholly spiritual, and will not interfere with Caesar's jurisdiction. Or, "Thou sayest it; but canst thou prove it? What evidence hast thou for it?" All that knew him knew the contrary, that he never pretended to be the king of the Jews, in opposition to Caesar as supreme, or to the governors that were sent by him, but the contrary.
3. Pilate's declaration of his innocency (Luk 23:4): He said to the chief priests, and the people that seemed to join with them in the prosecution, "I find no fault in this man. What breaches of your law he may have been guilty of I am not concerned to enquire, but I find nothing proved upon him that makes him obnoxious to our court."
4. The continued fury and outrage of the prosecutors, Luk 23:5. Instead of being moderated by Pilate's declaration of his innocency, and considering, as they ought to have done, whether they were not bringing the guilt of innocent blood upon themselves, they were the more exasperated, more exceedingly fierce. We do not find that they have any particular fact to produce, much less any evidence to prove it; but they resolve to carry it with noise and confidence, and say it, though they cannot prove it: He stirs up the people to rebel against Caesar, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee to this place. He did stir up the people, but it was not to any thing factious or seditious, but to every thing that was virtuous and praiseworthy. He did teach, but they could not charge him with teaching any doctrine that tended to disturb the public peace, or make the government uneasy or jealous.
II. They accused him before Herod. 1. Pilate removed him and his cause to Herod's court. The accusers mentioned Galilee, the northern part of Canaan. "Why," saith Pilate, "is he of that country? Is he a Galilean?" Luk 23:6. "Yes," said they, "that is his head-quarters; there he was spent most of his time." "Let us send him to Herod then," saith Pilate, "for Herod is now in town, and it is but fit he should have cognizance of his cause, since he belongs to Herod's jurisdiction." Pilate was already sick of the cause, and desirous to rid his hands of it, which seems to have been the true reason for sending him to Herod. But God ordered it so for the more evident fulfilling of the scripture, as appears Act 4:26, Act 4:27, where that of David (Psa 2:2), The kings of the earth and the rulers set themselves against the Lord and his Anointed, is expressly said to be fulfilled in Herod and Pontius Pilate. 2. Herod was very willing to have the examining of him (Luk 23:8): When he saw Jesus he was exceedingly glad, and perhaps the more glad because he saw him a prisoner, saw him in bonds. He had heard many things of him in Galilee, where his miracles had for a great while been all the talk of the country; and he longed to see him, not for any affection he had for him or his doctrine, but purely out of curiosity; and it was only to gratify this that he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him, which would serve him to talk of as long as he lived. In order to this, he questioned with him in many things, that at length he might bring him to something in which he might show his power. Perhaps he pumped him concerning things secret, or things to come, or concerning his curing diseases. But Jesus answered him nothing; nor would he gratify him so much as with the performance of one miracle. The poorest beggar, that asked a miracle for the relief of his necessity, was never denied; but this proud prince, that asked a miracle merely for the gratifying of his curiosity, is denied. He might have seen Christ and his wondrous works many a time in Galilee, and would not, and therefore it is justly said, Now he would see them, and shall not; they are hidden from his eyes, because he knew not the day of his visitation. Herod thought, now that he had him in bonds, he might command a miracle, but miracles must not be made cheap, nor Omnipotence be at the beck of the greatest potentate. 3. His prosecutors appeared against him before Herod, for they were restless in the prosecution: They stood, and vehemently accused him (Luk 23:10), impudently and boldly, so the word signifies. They would make Herod believe that he had poisoned Galilee too with his seditious notions. Note, It is no new thing for good men and good ministers, that are real and useful friends to the civil government, to be falsely accused as factious and seditious, and enemies to government. 4. Herod was very abusive to him: He, with his men of war, his attendants, and officers, and great men, set him at nought. They made nothing of him; so the word is. Horrid wickedness! To make nothing of him who made all things. They laughed at him as a fool; for they knew he had wrought many miracles to befriend others, and why would he not now work one to befriend himself? Or, they laughed at him as one that had lost his power, and was become weak as other men. Herod, who had been acquainted with John Baptist, and had more knowledge of Christ too than Pilate had, was more abusive to Christ than Pilate was; for knowledge without grace does but make men the more ingeniously wicked. Herod arrayed Christ in a gorgeous robe, some gaudy painted clothes, as a mock-king; and so he taught Pilate's soldiers afterwards to do him the same indignity. He was ringleader in that abuse. 5. Herod sent him back to Pilate, and it proved an occasion of the making of them friends, they having been for some time before at variance. Herod could not get sight of a miracle, but would not condemn him neither as a malefactor, and therefore sent him again to Pilate (Luk 23:11), and so returned Pilate's civility and respect in sending the prisoner to him; and this mutual obligation, with the messages that passed between them on this occasion, brought them to a better understanding one of another than there had been of late between them, Luk 23:12. They had been at enmity between themselves, probably upon Pilate's killing of the Galileans, who were Herod's subjects (Luk 13:1), or some other such matter of controversy as usually occurs among princes and great men. Observe how those that quarrelled with one another yet could unite against Christ; as Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek, though divided among themselves, were confederate against the Israel of God, Psa 83:7. Christ is the great peace-maker; both Pilate and Herod owned his innocency, and their agreeing in this cured their disagreeing in other things.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2–7 And they began to accuse him,.... After they found…
And they began to accuse him,.... After they found that Pilate would not receive him as a malefactor upon their word, and delivery of him to him as such; but insisted on knowing what they had to charge him with, and what accusation they had to bring against him:
saying, we have found this fellow perverting the nation; the nation of the Jews. Three of Beza's copies read, "our nation"; and so do the Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions; and it is to be understood, either of his perverting the nation from the true doctrine of Moses and the prophets; by spreading among them new notions, and false principles of religion; whereby he was a troubler of God's Israel, as Ahab charged Elijah, Kg1 18:17 where the Septuagint use the same word as here; and so is a charge of heresy, or innovation in religion against Christ: and thus Jesus stands charged in their writings (o); on those words in Psa 91:10. "Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling", they have this note;
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"that thou mayest not have a son, or a disciple, that corrupts his food publicly (i.e. his doctrine, who departs from the true doctrine and worship, to heresy and idolatry, and propagates the same), , "as Jesus the Nazarene".''
Which last clause, in some later editions of the Talmud, is left out: or it may be understood of his perverting the nation in their politics, and so is a charge of sedition against him, as follows;
forbidding to give tribute to Caesar; than which, nothing was more false; see Mat 22:21 nor does what is after alleged, support this charge:
saying, that he himself is Christ, a King; or Christ the King, or the King Christ; that is, he whom the Jews so frequently in their writings call , "the King Messiah", for so he might be, and was, without any hurt to Caesar's dignity, or revenue; for though he was a king, yet not an earthly one; and though he had a kingdom, yet not of this world: indeed they would insinuate by this, that he set himself up as an earthly king, in opposition to Caesar, to draw off the people from him, and their allegiance and duty to him; and so the Jews say of Jesus of Nazareth, that he was put to death, and had no mercy shown him, because he was , "near to the kingdom" (p). The whole of this charge was untrue; he was so far from perverting the nation with false doctrine and worship, that he taught the true doctrine, and right way of worship, and refuted the false glosses of the Pharisees, and opposed the vain traditions of the elders, by which both were corrupted; and so far was he from any seditious principles and practices, or doing any injury to Tiberius Caesar, the then reigning emperor, that he taught the people to give Caesar the things that were Caesar's, and he himself paid the tribute money; and when the people would have took him by force, and have made him a king, he avoided it by getting out of the way, Joh 6:15.
(o) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 103. 1. & Beracot, fol, 17. 2. (p) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 43. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 7 Matt. xxvii, 1; Mark xv, 1; John xviii, 28.
Matt. xxvii, 1; Mark xv, 1; John xviii, 28.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 7 Christ is led to Pilate, and accused by the…
CHAPTER XXIII.
Christ is led to Pilate, and accused by the Jews, 1, 2.
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Pilate examines, and pronounces him innocent, 3, 4.
The Jews virulently accuse him, 5.
Pilate, understanding that he was of Galilee, sends him to
Herod, by whom he is examined, 6-9.
The chief priests and scribes vehemently accuse him, and Herod
and his soldiers mock him, 10, 11.
Pilate and Herod become friends, 12.
Pilate, before the chief priests, rulers, and people, pronounces
Christ to be innocent, and offers to release him, 13-20.
The Jews clamour for his condemnation, and Pilate gives him up
to their will, 21-25.
Simon bears his cross, 26.
The people bewail him, and he foretells the destruction of the
Jewish state, 27-31.
He and two malefactors are brought to Calvary, and are crucified,
32, 33.
He prays for his crucifiers, 34.
He is derided, mocked, and insulted by the rulers, and by the
soldiers, 35-37.
The superscription on the cross, 38.
The conduct of the two malefactors, to one of whom he promises
paradise, 39-43.
The great darkness, 44, 45.
He gives up the ghost, 46.
The centurion and many others are greatly affected at his death,
47-49.
Joseph of Arimathea begs the body, and puts it in his own new
tomb, 50-53.
The women prepare spices and ointments to embalm him, 54-56.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIII.
Verse 1. The whole multitude] It seems most probable that the chief priests, elders, scribes, and captains of the temple, together with their servants, dependents, and other persons hired for the purpose, made up the multitude mentioned here. The common people were generally favourers of Christ; and for this reason the Jewish rulers caused him to be apprehended in the night, and in the absence of the people, Lu 22:6, and it was now but just the break of day, Lu 22:66.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 4 Luk 23:1-3. And the whole multitude of them —…
Luk 23:1-3. And the whole multitude of them — Namely, of the chief priests, scribes, and elders, arose and led him unto Pilate — See on Mat 27:42; and Mar 15:1. And they began to accuse him, — Charging him with three capital crimes; perverting the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Cesar, and saying, that he himself was Christ, a king. They did not charge him with calling himself the Son of God, knowing very well that Pilate would not have concerned himself with such an accusation, which no way affected the state. All the three crimes, however, with which the Jews charge him, were only inferences of theirs, from his saying that he was the Son of God, Luk 22:70. They themselves drew imaginary consequences from his doctrine, which he had expressly denied; nay, and taught the contrary: and they who oppose his followers still use the same method. They lay to their charge things of which they are perfectly innocent, and on that ground persecute them with violence. The truth is, the opposition which these chief priests and others made to Christ, proceeded from mere malice and envy: and they pretended zeal for Cesar only to ingratiate themselves with Pilate, and to procure from him a condemnatory sentence against Jesus, without which they knew they could not accomplish their design of putting him to death. So far were they from being in reality zealous for, or even well affected toward Cesar, that a general uneasiness, of which Pilate was not ignorant, prevailed in the nation under the Roman yoke, and they wanted nothing but an opportunity to shake it off. And now they wished Pilate to believe, that this Jesus was active to foment that general discontent, of which, in reality, they themselves were the aiders and abetters. Christ had particularly taught, that they ought to give tribute to Cesar, though he knew many would be offended with him for it; and yet he is here falsely accused as forbidding to pay that tribute! As to making himself a rival with Cesar, it is certain that the chief reason why they rejected him, and would not own him to be the Messiah, was because he did not appear in worldly pomp and power, and assume the character of a temporal prince, nor do any thing against Cesar. He did indeed say that he was Christ, and if so, then a king; but not such a king as was ever likely to give disturbance to Cesar.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–7 See the notes at Mat 27:1-2.
See the notes at Mat 27:1-2.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On v7 He sent him away to Herod. Pilate, in this…
He sent him away to Herod. Pilate, in this instance, not only extricated himself from the importunities of the Jewish priests, (ver. 5) but moreover obeyed the Roman law in that particular, which forbade any one to be condemned by a governor to whom he was not the subject. (Theophylactus)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Luke Chapter 23
Luke Chapter 23
The Gentiles, however, are not presented in this Gospel as being voluntarily guilty. We see, no doubt, an indifference which is flagrant injustice in a case like this, and an insolence which nothing could excuse; but Pilate does what he can to deliver Christ, and Herod, disappointed, sends Him back unjudged. The will is altogether on the side of the Jews. That is the characteristic of this part of the history in Luke’s Gospel. Pilate would rather not have burdened himself with this useless crime, and he despised the Jews; but they were resolved on the crucifixion of Jesus, and require Barabbas to be released-a seditious man and a murderer (see Luk 23:20-25). [44]
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Jesus, therefore, as He was led to Calvary, announced to the women, who with natural feeling lamented for Him, that it was all over with Jerusalem, that they had to bewail their own fate and not His; for days were coming upon Jerusalem which would make them call those happy who had never been mothers-days in which they would in vain seek refuge from terror and judgment. For if in Him, the true green tree, these things were done, what would become of the dry tree of Judaism without God? Nevertheless, at the moment of His crucifixion, the Lord intercedes for the unhappy people: they knew not what they did-intercession, to which Peter’s discourse to the Jews (Act 3:1-26) is the remarkable answer by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven. The rulers among the Jews, completely blinded, as well as the people, taunt Him with being unable to save Himself from the cross-not knowing that it was impossible if He was a Saviour, and that all was taken from them, and that God was establishing another order of things, founded on atonement, in the power of eternal life by the resurrection. Dreadful blindness, of which the poor soldiers were but imitators, according to the malignity of human nature! But the judgment of Israel was in their mouth, and (on God’s part) upon the cross. It was the King of the Jews who hung there-abased indeed, for a thief hung by His side could railon Him-but in the place to which love had brought Him for the everlasting and present salvation of souls. This was manifested at the very moment. The insults that reproached Him for not saving Himself from the cross, had His answer in the fate of the converted thief, who rejoined Him the same day in Paradise.
This history is a striking demonstration of the change to which this Gospel leads us. The King of the Jews, by their own confession, is not delivered-He is crucified. What an end to the hopes of this people! But at the same time a gross sinner, converted by grace on the very gibbet, goes straight to Paradise. A soul is eternally saved. It is not the kingdom, but a soul-out of the body-in happiness with Christ. And remark here how the presentation of Christ brings out the wickedness of the human heart. No thief would mock at or reproach another thief on the gibbet. But the moment it is Christ who is there, this takes place.
But I would say a few words on the condition of the other thief, and on the reply of Christ. We see every mark of conversion, and of the most remarkable faith. The fear of God, the beginning of wisdom, is there; conscience upright and vigorous. It is not “and justly” to his fellow, but “we indeed justly”; knowledge of the perfect sinless righteousness of Christ as man; the acknowledgment of Him as the Lord, when His own disciples had forsaken and denied Him, and when there was no sign of His glory or of the dignity of His Person. He was accounted by man as one like himself. His kingdom was but a subject of scorn to all. But the poor thief is taught of God; and all is plain. He is as sure that Christ will have the kingdom as if He was reigning in glory. All his desire is that Christ should remember him then; and what confidence in Christ is here shewn through the knowledge of Him in spite of his acknowledged guilt! It shews how Christ filled his heart, and how his confiding in grace by its brightness shut out human shame, for who would like to be remembered in the shame of a gibbet! Divine teaching is singularly manifested here. Do not we know by divine teaching that Christ was sinless, and to be assured of His kingdom there was a faith above all circumstances? He alone is a comfort to Jesus upon the cross, and makes Him think (in answering his faith) of the Paradise that awaited Him when He should have finished the work that His Father had given Him to do. Observe the state of sanctification this poor man was in by faith. In all the agonies of the cross, and while believing Jesus to be the Lord, he seeks no relief at His hands, but asks that He will remember him in His kingdom. He is filled with one thought-to have his portion with Jesus. He believes that the Lord will return; he believes in the kingdom, while the King is rejected and crucified, and when, as to man, there was no longer any hope. But the reply of Jesus goes farther in the revelation of that proper to this Gospel, and adds that which brings in, not the kingdom, but everlasting life, the happiness of the soul. The thief had asked Jesus to remember him when He returned in His kingdom. The Lord replies that he should not wait for that day of manifested glory which would be visible to the world, but that this very day he should be with Him in Paradise. Precious testimony, and perfect grace! Jesus crucified was more than King-He was Saviour. The poor malefactor was a testimony to it, and the joy and consolation of the Lord’s heart-the first-fruits of the love which had placed them side by side, where, if the poor thief bore the fruit of his sins from man, the Lord of glory at his side was bearing the fruit of them from God, treated as Himself a malefactor in the same condemnation. Through a work unknown to man save by faith the sins of His companion were for ever put away, they no longer existed, their remembrance was only that of the grace which had taken them away, and which had for ever cleansed his soul from them, making him that moment as fit to enter Paradise as Christ Himself his companion there!
The Lord then, having fulfilled all things, and still full of strength, commends His spirit to His Father. He commits it to Him, the last act of that which composed His whole life-the perfect energy of the Holy Ghost acting in a perfect confidence in His Father, and dependence upon Him. He commits His spirit to His Father, and expires. For it was death that He had before Him-but death in absolute faith which trusted in His Father-death with God by faith; and not the death that separated from God. Meantime nature veiled itself-acknowledged the departure from this world of Him who had created it. All is darkness. But on the other hand God reveals Himself-the veil of the temple is rent in twain from the top to the bottom. God had hidden Himself in thick darkness-the way into the holiest had not yet been manifested. But now there is no longer a veil; that which has put sin away through perfect love now shines forth, while the holiness of God’s presence is joy to the heart, and not torment. What brings us into the presence of perfect holiness without a veil, put away the sin which forbade us to be there. Our communion is with Him through Christ, holy and unblameable before Him in love.
The poor centurion, struck with all that had taken place, confesses-such is the power of the cross upon the conscience-that this Jesus whom he has crucified was certainly the righteous man. I say conscience, because I do not pretend to say that it went any farther than that in the case of the centurion. We see the same effect on the spectators: they went away smiting their breasts. They perceived that something solemn had happened-that they had fatally compromised themselves with God.
Footnotes for Luke Chapter 23
44: This wilful guilt of the Jews is strongly brought out in John’s Gospel also, that is, their national guilt. Pilate treats them with contempt; and there it is they say, “We have no king but Caesar.”
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 3. Pilate and Herod
3. Pilate and Herod
a. JESUS LED TO PILATE, INTERROGATED BY HIM, AND FOUND INNOCENT (Luk_23:1-4)
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1And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate. 2And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the1 nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cesar, saying that he himself is Christ a king. 3And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it. 4Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people [crowds, ὄχλους], I find no fault in this man.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Luk_23:1. And led Him.—The solemn leading away of our Lord to Pilate, and His delivery to him, is one of the particulars of the history of the Passion which all the Evangelists visibly emphasize. No wonder, for the process herewith enters upon an entirely new stadium, and passes now from the spiritual to the secular sphere. As to the time and manner of the leading away, as to the sequence of events and the character of the judge, see Lange on Mat_27:1. As respects this whole trial, compare, moreover, besides the writers whom inter alios, Hase, Leben Jesu, § 3, gives, the Dissertatio, by the Dutch divine, P. J. J. Mounier, De Pilati in causa servatoris agendi ratione, L. B. 1825. As respects the source from which we draw our knowledge of what here took place, the gospel of Nicodemus, it is true, contains some traits, which, on internal grounds, appear credible, but, on the whole, it has only this value, that we know from it how, in the fifth and sixth century, they represented to themselves this process. In the Acts, and in the epistles also, there are not wanting descriptive allusions to that which took place under the Roman Procurator (Act_3:13-14; Act_4:27; 1Ti_6:13). But here, also, the four gospels remain the chief source, belying here in no way their respective peculiarities. While the Synoptics, namely, delineate to us especially the public side of the trial, John alone makes known to us what passed between our Lord and the Procurator in private. Matthew, who more than the others, even in the beginning of his gospel, speaks of dreams and visions, is the only one who gives account of the remarkable dream of Pilate’s wife, as well, too, as of the genuinely Israelitish ceremony of the washing of Pilate’s hands. Mark describes, in his way, briefly, vigorously, rapidly, how the Lion of the tribe of Judah hurries over the field of conflict to His complete triumph. Luke has enriched the delineation of this trial with a new particular, with the appearance before Herod, but at the same time condenses the occurrences more closely, takes more account of arranging the facts than of the sequence of time, and even passes over in almost entire silence the scourging and mocking by the Roman soldiers. The actual commencement of the trial John alone describes, Luk_18:28-32. On the other hand, we owe to Luke, Luk_23:2, the very precise statement of the actual ground of accusation with which the chief priests open the series of their charges.
Unto Pilate.—The question whether we, by the πραιτώριον, have to understand the well-known tower Antonia, or the palace of Herod, we believe that we must answer in the former sense; for it was in the tower Antonia that the Roman garrison lay, and the Procurator, therefore, during his temporary abode in the capital, might best lodge there. Tradition does not permit us to identify the places named, and it is entirely arbitrary to consider the palace of Herod as the established and ordinary residence of the Procurators in their visits to Jerusalem. Josephus, De Bell. Jdg_2:14; Jdg_2:8; Philo, De Legatione Judœorum, p. 1034, to whom appeal is commonly made in favor of Herod’s palace, leave it entirely undecided whether this palace was always, and also at the time of Jesus, the residence of the governor. The above tower Antonia we are to look for on the northeast side of the temple mountain, while the place “Gabbatha,” according to Josephus, also lay between the tower Antonia and the western corner of the temple, immediately before the judgment-hall.
Luk_23:2. And they began.—It is not easy for them so to introduce the case as to make from the very beginning a favorable impression upon Pilate. The substance as well as the tone of their address betrays plainly enough that they intend this. Τοῦτον, first, δεικτικῶς, without statement of name, with visible contempt: εὕρομεν, with affected gravity, with which the subsequent declaration of Pilate that he had found no fault in Him, he, as little as Herod, Luk_23:14, singularly contrasts: τὸ ἕθνος ἡμῶν, with the full warmth of genuine friends of the people, who cannot endure that their true interests should be set at stake. Comp. Joh_7:49. The accusation itself is threefold. First, He perverts the people, διαστρέφοντα. Properly, He “gives them a false direction,” He brings them from the good way on which they themselves and the Romans with them would be so glad to see them walk. Moreover, He forbids to give tribute to the Emperor, since He—and this is the ground as well of the one as of the other offence—finally declares concerning Himself that He is Christ a King. Not without ground do they as yet intentionally avoid speaking of a king of the Jews, although it at once appears that Pilate interprets their indefinite expression in no less significance. With noticeable tact they place first not the religious but the political side of their imputations, and then, before making the attempt to prove, at least in some measure, their false accusation, they wait until Pilate himself shall inquire for the grounds of their assertion. He, however, already knows the Jews well enough, and therefore appeals as quickly as possible from the accusers to the Accused.
Luk_23:3. Art thou the King of the Jews?—Pilate, not unacquainted with the prevailing Messianic hope, formulates his question very precisely, and seeks to find out whether Jesus is really the promised and long-sighed-for King of Israel. To this question our Lord cannot possibly answer otherwise than, without delay and without the least equivocalness, with Yes. By denial or silence He would have come into contradiction with Himself. And if it is alleged that our Lord would have had to define more particularly the sense in which He called Himself so, since otherwise a misunderstanding on the part of the heathen ruler would have been possible, we may confidently assume that the tone as well as the manner in which He uttered His answer was fully calculated to excite the Procurator to a more particular investigation. And indeed He attains this purpose, inasmuch as Pilate takes Him apart with himself, that He may now more particularly explain and give the reason for His affirmative answer.
Luk_23:4. I find no fault in this man.—According to Meyer, Pilate finds in the confession itself the token of innocence.—“It is, in his view, the expression of the fixed idea of an enthusiast.” Possible, certainly, although for this opinion not a single proof can be given, but the question would still remain whether such an instantaneous and merely subjective impression would have entitled the Procurator, without further investigation, to declare the Accused at once innocent, and, secondly, if his declaration had been accepted, to relieve him immediately of any further prosecution. We are much more disposed to assume that Pilate, after the first public audience, which all the Synoptics give, ordered then the private hearing, which John alone has preserved, and only in consequence of this uttered the declaration of innocence which Luke, Luk_23:4; Joh_18:38, relate. In the private interview of Pilate with Jesus, the charge preferred Luk_23:2, it is manifest, is tacitly presupposed. Here, also, Luke remains really unintelligible if he is not complemented from John.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The leading away of Jesus is one of the most remarkable turning points in the history of the Passion. It serves not only to fulfil our Lord’s declaration that He should be delivered over to the Gentiles, Luk_18:32, but it also brings the Passion of our Lord into direct connection with the history of the world, the reins of which, at that time, God had, as it were, placed in the hands of the Romans. It becomes the means of bringing to Him, again according to His own declaration, the death on the cross, but previously prepares, through the declaration of Pilate which it elicits, the revelation of His innocence and majesty. The Jews’ rejection of the Messiah is here already, in principle, decided, and with it, at the same time, also, the destruction of the City and of the Temple. While the Sanhedrim, therefore, is leading Him away, it declares therewith that it will not have this Messiah, and gives the promised salvation out of its own hands into the impure hands of heathens. From this hour Israel’s Passover becomes an empty echo, and Israel itself, like an impure leaven, is purged out of the house of God, the church of Christ. But thus do they, at the same time, help to fulfil God’s everlasting counsel, that all things should be comprehended under one head in Christ, Eph_1:10. From the moment when the Great Sufferer trod the threshold of the heathen dwelling, the wall of partition which was between is broken down, Eph_2:14-16, and the heathen world invited in to a nobler feast of freedom than Israel was able to celebrate in the paschal night. As the night, Act_16:9-10, was for the spiritual weal of Europe a decisive one, so was this morning for the salvation of the whole heathen world.
2. It is one of the most adorable ways of the providence of God, that at the very time at which Christ must die, a man stood at the head of the government in Judea, who in every respect was most peculiarly fitted to be, in his ignorance, a minister of the counsel of God for the salvation of the world,—on the one hand, receptive enough to recognize the truth, courageous enough to declare it and to confess several times the innocence of our Lord, conscientious enough to omit no effort to deliver Him; but, on the other hand, moreover, so weak that he loved honor among men rather than honor from God, and so selfish that his own honor lay more at heart with him than the cause of the innocent.—We feel that just such a man must the secular judge have been, under whom the Deliverer of the world should suffer death.
3. By the delivery of our Lord to Pilate, the heathen world now becomes partaker with the Jewish world in the greatest wickedness that has ever been committed. In this it appears that the true light is hated as well by those who are under the law as by those who are without the law, and the judgment Rom_3:19-20, appears as a perfectly righteous one. But, at the same time, there is also revealed therein the grace of God, as having appeared to all who believe, without respect of persons, Rom_3:21-31.
4. The very manner in which the chief priests here introduce the secular process reveals from the very beginning the part which they are now resolved to play. No means, even slander, is too base for them; for we can only call it thoroughly conscious slander when they, after what had taken place three days before, Luk_20:20-25, yet venture with bold brow to assert that our Lord had forbidden the payment of taxes. Sometimes they come creeping, sometimes they spitefully erect themselves, and prove therewith that they do homage to the principle: the end sanctifies the means. And scarcely have they failed in one attempt when they proceed immediately with desperate stubbornness to another. So much more gloriously beams over against this night of wickedness the glory of the immaculate innocence of the Lord, to which Pilate must repeatedly bear witness. In union with other voices which were audible in honor of the moral purity of Jesus In the last hours of His life, from different sides, the testimony of Pilate also serves to strengthen us in our most holy faith, that the Lamb of God is indeed an ἀμνὸς ἄμωμος καὶ ἄσπιλος. The connection in which this sinlessness of our Lord stands with the atoning virtue of His death, is something which it is the business of Dogmatics to bring to view.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The early morning hour of the most remarkable day of the world’s history.—The most terrible injustice practised under the forms of law.—The King of the Jews delivered into the hands of the Gentiles.—Christ the centre of the union of the Jewish and the heathen world: 1. The sins of both He, a. reveals, b. bears, c. covers; 2. both He reconciles in one body, a. with God, b. with one another, c. with heaven, Col_1:19-20.—Slander against our Lord and His people: 1. Inexhaustible in its weapons; 2. impotent for victory.—Jesus the Faithful Witness, Rev_1:5.—“Thou sayest it”: 1. The truth; 2. the dignity; 3. the requirement, of this utterance.—The first favorable impression which the Accused makes upon His yet impartial judge.—The immaculate innocence of the Suffering One: 1. Slandered; 2. vindicated; 3. crowned.—The praiseworthy manner in which Pilate opens the trial of Jesus, in contrast with the lamentable way in which he ends it.—Pilate the image of the natural man in his relation to Christ.
Starke:—They who would otherwise have no communion with one another easily become one when one must help the other to carry out his evil schemes.—Quesnel:—There is no course of life so righteous and innocent that it cannot be accused and persecuted.—Brentius:—Judge not at once, but hear also the other side.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—One finds often even more uprightness in a heathen than in a Christian judge.—Osiander:—Christ has suffered not for His sin but for ours, 2Co_5:21.—Heubner:—The preacher of obedience is charged with insurrection.—Jesus, it is true, has caused the greatest imaginable commotions.—Arndt:—The first hearing of Jesus before the Procurator; how Pilate has to do: 1. With the Jews; 2. with our Lord.—Krummacher:—Christ before Pilate: 1. The leading away of Jesus to Pilate; 2. His entry into the judgment-hall; 3. the beginning of the judicial proceeding.—The accusations.—Christ a King.—The Lamb of God.—Tholuck:—The history of the Passion makes evident in Pilate to what degree the human heart is capable of becoming shallow and frivolous.—J. B. Hasebroeck, Preacher in Amsterdam:—Pilate: 1. As man: 2. as Judges 3. as witness to us.
Footnotes:
[1]Luk_23:2.—With Lachmann, Tischendorf, [Meyer, Tregelles,] we read on the authority of B., D., [Cod. Sin., H.,] K., L., M., [R.,] Cursives, &c., ἔθνος ἡμῶν. [Alford omits it, regarding it as a probable reminiscence of Luk_7:5.—C. C. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6 § 135.—JESUS BEFORE PILATE, Luk_23:1-5.
§ 135.—JESUS BEFORE PILATE, Luk_23:1-5.
See notes on Mat_27:1-14; Mar_15:1-5; Joh_18:28-38.
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1. The whole multitude—Not of the people, who were not as yet turned against Jesus, but of the parties mentioned in Luk_22:66 of the last chapter, namely, the ruling classes.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 Luk_23:1-4. First phase of the Trial before Pilate.
Luk_23:1-4. First phase of the Trial before Pilate.
1. the whole multitude] Rather, the whole number (plethos, not ochlos).
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unto Pilate] The fact that our Lord “suffered under Pontius Pilate” is also mentioned by Tacitus (Ann. xv. 44). Pontius Pilatus was a Roman Knight, who (a.d. 26) had been appointed, through the influence of Sejanus, sixth Procurator of Judaea. His very first act—the bringing of the silver eagles and other insignia of the Legions from Caesarea to Jerusalem—a step which he was obliged to retract—had caused fierce exasperation between him and the Jews. This had been increased by his application of money from the Corban or Sacred Treasury to the secular purpose of bringing water to Jerusalem from the Pools of Solomon (see Luk_13:4). In consequence of this quarrel Pilate sent his soldiers among the mob with concealed daggers—(a fatal precedent for the Sicarii)—and there had been a great massacre. A third tumult had been caused by his placing gilt votive shields dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius, in his residence at Jerusalem. The Jews regarded these as idolatrous, and he had been obliged by the Emperor’s orders to remove them. He had also had deadly quarrels with the Samaritans, whom he had attacked on Mount Gerizim in a movement stirred up by a Messianic impostor; and with the Galilaeans “whose blood he had mingled with their sacrifices” (Luk_13:1). He reflected the hatred felt towards the Jews by his patron Sejanus, and had earned the character which Philo gives him of being a savage, inflexible, and arbitrary ruler. The Procurator, when at Jerusalem for the great Festivals, seems to have occupied an old palace of Herod’s, known in consequence as Herod’s Praetorium (Philo, Leg. ad Caium, p. 1034).
It was a building of peculiar splendour, and our Lord was conducted to it from the Hall of Meeting, across the bridge which spanned the Valley of Tyropoeon. It is however possible that Pilate may have occupied a part of Fort Antonia, and it has been supposed that this view receives some confirmation from the discovery by Capt. Warren of a subterranean chamber with a pillar in it, which is believed to be not later than the age of the Herods, and is on the suggested site of Antonia. Mr. Fergusson (Temples of the Jews, p. 176) inclines to the view that this newly-discovered chamber may have been the very scene of our Lord’s flagellation. Our Lord was bound (Mat_27:2) in sign that He was now a condemned criminal. This narrative of the Trial should be compared throughout with John 18, 19.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–7 (1-5) And the whole multitude of them arose.—See Notes…
XXIII.
(1-5) And the whole multitude of them arose.—See Notes on Mat_27:11-14; Mar_15:2-5.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Vers. 1-4. The trial before Pilate: First examination.
Vers. 1-4. The trial before Pilate: First examination.
And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate. The Sanhedrin had now formally condemned Jesus to death. They were, however, precluded by the Roman regulations then in force from carrying out their judgment. A capital sentence in Judaea could only be inflicted as the result of a decision by the Roman court. The Sanhedrin supposed, and as we shall see rightly, that the judgment they had pronounced would speedily be confirmed by the Roman judge. The Sanhedrin condemnation to death was, however, from the Jewish standpoint, illegal. In capital cases judgment could not be legally pronounced on the day of trial. But in the case of Jesus, the Accused was condemned without the legal interval which should have been left between the trial and the sentence. The Prisoner was then at once hurried before the Roman tribunal, in order that the Jewish sentence might be confirmed and carried out with all the additional horrors which accompanied Gentile public executions in such cases of treason. Derenbourg ("Histoire de la Palestine," p. 201) attributes the undue illegal precipitancy of the whole proceeding to the overwhelming influence exercised in the supreme council by Annas and Caiaphas with their friends who were Sadducees, a party notorious for their cruelty as well as for their unbelief. Had the Pharisees borne sway in the Sanhedrin at that juncture, such an illegality could never have taken place. This apology possesses certain weight, as it is based upon known historical facts; yet when the general bearing of the Pharisee party towards our Lord during the greater part of his public ministry is remembered, it can scarcely be supposed that the action of the Sadducee majority in the Sanhedrin was repugnant to, or even opposed by, the Pharisee element in the great assembly. Pilate, Pontius Pilate, a Roman knight, owed his high position as Procurator of Judea to his friendship with Sejanus, the powerful minister of the Emperor Tiberius, He probably belonged by birth or adoption to the gens of the Pontii. When Judaea became formally subject to the empire on the deposition of Archelaus, Pontius Pilate, of whose previous career nothing is known, through the interest of Sejanus, was appointed to govern it, with the title of procurator, or collector of the revenue, invested with judicial power. This was in A.D. 26, and he held the post for ten years, when he was deposed from his office in disgrace. His government of Judaea seems to have been singularly unhappy. His great patron Sejanus hated the Jews, and Pilate seems faithfully to have imitated his powerful friend. Constantly the Roman governor appears to have wounded the susceptibilities of the strange, unhappy people he was placed over. Fierce disputes, mutual insults arising out of apparently purposeless acts of arbitrary power on his side, characterized the period of his rule. His behaviour in the one great event of his life, when Jesus was brought before his tribunal, will illustrate his character. He was superstitious and yet cruel; afraid of the people he affected to despise; faithless to the spirit of the authority with which he was lawfully invested. In the great crisis of his history, flora the miserably selfish motive of securing his own petty interests, we watch him deliberately giving up a Man, whom he knew to be innocent, and felt to be noble and pure, to torture, shame, and death.
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HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-3. The Divine kingdom.
Deeply interesting is this interview between the Nazarene and the Roman, the Jewish Prisoner and the Roman judge; the one then brought forth as a malefactor and now seated on the throne of the world, the other then exalted on the seat of power and now sunk to the depth of universal pity if not of universal scorn. "Art thou a King?" asks the latter, in the tone of lofty superiority. "I am," replies the former, in the tone of calm and profound assurance. W hat, then, was this kingdom of which he spoke? What was that kingdom of God, that kingdom of heaven, that "kingdom of the truth" (Joh_18:37) which he foretold, which he came to this world and which he laid down his life to establish? It was the sovereignty of God over all human souls. God"s claim which is not founded on prescription, nor upon force, but upon righteousness is his claim on the reverence, the affection, the obedience, of those whom he has created, preserved, enriched, who owe to him all that he demands of them. With us, who have revolted from his rule, this means nothing less than the restoration of our loyalty, and thus our return to his likeness and to his favor as well as to his sway. We look at
I THE ORIGINALITY OF THE CONCEPTION. We plume ourselves upon the originality of our ideas, upon our "creations." But when did the mind of man launch on the sea of human thought such a conception as this kingdom of God? Men had entertained the idea of founding by force a widely extended empire which should command the outward homage and tribute of hundreds of thousands of men, and should last for many generations. But who ever designed a creation like this glorious "kingdom of heaven a world-wide sway embracing all living souls whatsoever, exercised by an unseen King, in which the service of the lip, and even that of the life, would be of no account at all without the homage of the heart and the willing subjection of the spirit, characterized by universal righteousness, and crowned by abounding peace and lasting joy?
II THE IMMENSITY OF THE WORK TO BE ACCOMPLISHED. For what would be involved in the establishment of such a kingdom as this? Not only the formation and maintenance of a new religion that should hold up its head and keep its course amid surrounding faiths, but the utter intolerance and complete subversion of every other creed and cultus; the emptying of all the temples and all the synagogues in every laud; the dissolution of all the venerable religious institutions which were rooted in the prejudice, fixed in the affections, wrought into the habits and the lives of men; it meant the establishment in the convictions and in the conscience of mankind of a faith which came into direct collision with all its intellectual pride, with all its social selfishness, with all its powerful passions.
III ITS SUBLIMITY AS A PURPOSE AND A HOPE. Not merely to ameliorate the circumstances and conditions of a country, or of the world at large. That would have been a noble purpose; but that would have been slight and small in comparison with the aim of Jesus Christ. His view was to put away the source of all poverty and sorrow and death; to "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself;" to found in the hearts and therefore in the lives of men a kingdom of holiness, and therefore of true and lasting blessedness; to restore to God his rightful heritage in the love of his children, and, at the same time, to restore to men everywhere their high and glorious portion in the favor and friendship, in the likeness and glory, of God. Was ever scheme, was ever hope like this so divinely new, so magnificently great, so unapproachably sublime? 1. The way into this kingdom is by a humble, living faith. 2. The way on to its higher places is the service of sacrificial love. The path which takes us to the cross is the way to the throne. C.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Vers. 1-25. Jesus vindicated by his enemies.
We pass now from the ecclesiastical to the secular sphere. The charge brought forward in the Sanhedrin is blasphemy; before Pilate and Herod the charge must be sedition and treason. Yet amid his unscrupulous enemies unimpeachable testimony is forthcoming of his innocence.
I THE TESTIMONY ELICITED BY PILATE. (Vers. 1-7) The accusation made against Christ was twofold:
(1) forbidding to pay tribute;
(2) assuming royalty.
Now, the first part of the accusation was totally false. Jesus, when asked about the tribute, had expressly advised the people to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar"s." There could be no conflict of interests between the emperor and Christ so far as tribute was concerned. Doubtless upon this first point Pilate received ample assurance that it was groundless, When, again, he inquired about Christ"s royalty, he was told that his kingship was not earthly, but spiritual. Although Pilate could not grasp its exact meaning, he saw sufficient to assure him that it was on a different plane from that of Caesar"s. Hence Pilate declared his innocence before his accusers. Upon this the chief priests and scribes were reduced to the complaint that he was stirring up the people from Galilee to Judaea. Strange complaint, that Jesus was rousing up his fellows! He was troubling Israel very much as Elias had done. Men are in desperate need of an accusation when they resort to this one, which merely means that the accused one is in downright earnest! As soon as Pilate hears of Christ"s earnestness in Galilee, he inquires if he belongs to Herod"s jurisdiction, and is happy to hand him over for trial to the Idumean.
II THE TESTIMONY BORNE BY HEROD. (Vers. 8-12) We have next to notice how Herod has unconsciously to testify to Christ"s innocence. The murderer of the Baptist thinks, now that Jesus is brought before him, that he has only to express a wish for a miracle, and it will be gratified. To his great surprise and humiliation he receives no answer to his numerous questions; nor do the fierce calumnies of the Jews elicit from the meek Messiah a single word in mitigation or defense. The treatment of Herod was that of silent contempt. The wicked king deserved no other fate. And his only revenge was to mock Christ and set him at naught. So they array him in a robe such as the high priests wore, white and brilliant, indicating at once what he pretended to be and how innocent he really was. Herod, in sending him back in this scornful fashion, conveyed to Pilate"s mind clearly that he had no more fault to find with him than the Roman governor had.This was the second testimony to the innocency of Jesus.
III THE TESTIMONY IMPLIED BY THE DEMAND FOR BARABBAS. (Vers. 13-19) In no clearer way could the chief priests have shown the utter groundlessness of their first charge than in demanding Barabbas in preference to Jesus. Here was a real rebel, who had committed murder in the insurrection, and he is made the idol of the Jewish populace. They show in this their sympathy with sedition. They show clearly to Pilate that Jesus must be thwarting in some way their seditious designs, else they would not clamor so eagerly for his blood. Instead of substantiating their accusation against Jesus, therefore, they really formulate an accusation of treason against themselves. They were guilty; he was innocent. They were the dangerous class; Jesus occupied a region altogether outside the interests of Caesar.
IV JESUS SACRIFICED TO POPULAR CLAMOUR. (Vers. 20-25) There is no show of justice in condemning Christ. All accusation against him fails, and all which can be done is to shout him down. If Jesus be not crucified, Jerusalem will go into revolt. Will not an emeute be worse than the death of an individual? And so the worldly governor, charged by Rome to keep the peace in the province at all hazards, prefers to deliver the innocent to the will of the guilty than to brave their wrath. It is clamor that secures his condemnation. The judge, who should be the protector of the innocent, unites with the populace in doing him to death. Alas! that men should be so bent on peace as to be ready to sacrifice the innocent to secure it! And yet our Lord"s character never shone with so bright a lustre as when he submitted to such wrongs as these. He was truly meek and lowly in heart when he bore so quietly the wrath of the Jews and the time-serving policies of Pilate and Herod. This friendship of Herod and of Pilate, resting on a common indifference to Jesus, is the emblem of those worldly truces which men make who wish to enjoy immunity from trouble; but they do not wear well. R.M.E.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Then said Pilate
Luk_23:1-7
Then said Pilate
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The conduct of Christ contrasted with the conduct of other public characters
I.
Amongst the philosophers of the heathen world not one can be named, who did not admit some favourite vice into his system of good morals; and who was not more than suspected of some criminal indulgence in his own practice; not one, whose public instructions were without error, and whose private conduct was without reproach. In the character of Jesus Christ no such imperfection can be traced. In His addresses to His followers, He taught virtue unpolluted by impurity: and in His practice He exemplified what He taught.
II. In the most distinguished of our contemporaries, we always find some weakness to pity or lament, or only some single and predominant excellence to admire. In each individual the learning or the activity, the counsel or the courage, only can be praised. We look in vain for consistency or perfection. The conduct of Christ betrays no such inequality. In Him no virtue is shaded by its correspondent infirmity. No pre-eminent quality obscures the rest. Every portion of His character is in harmony with every other. Every point in the picture shines with great and appropriate lustre.
III.
In the heroes, which our fables delight to pourtray, we are continually astonished by such exploits as nothing in real life can parallel; by the achievements of sagacity that cannot be deceived, and of courage that cannot be resisted.
We are either perplexed by the union of qualities and endowments incompatible with each other, or overpowered by the glare of such excellencies and powers, as nature with all her bounty never bestowed upon man.
Jesus Christ has surpassed the heroes of romance.
In contemplating His character we are not less surprised by the variety of His merits, than delighted by their consistency. They always preserve their proportion to each other. No duty falls below the occasion that demands it. No virtue is carried to excess.
IV. In the most exalted of our fellow-creatures, and even in the practice of their most distinguished virtues, we can always discover some concern for their personal advantage; some secret hope of fame, of profit, or of power; some prospect of an addition to their present enjoyments. In the conduct of Christ none of the weakness of self-love can be discovered. He went about doing good, which He did not appear to share, and from which He did not seem to expect either immediate or future advantage. His benevolence, and His alone, was without self-interest, without variation and without alloy.
V. It is a very general and a very just complaint, that every man occasionally neglects the duties of his place and station. The character of Christ is exposed to no such imputation. The great purpose of His mission indeed, appears to have taken, entire possession of his thoughts.
VI. The pretended prophet of Arabia made religion the sanction of his licentiousness, and the cloak of his ambition.
VII. An impostor, of whatever description, though he has but one character to support, seldom supports it with such uniformity as to procure ultimate success to his imposition. Jesus Christ had a great variety of characters to sustain; and He sustained them all without failure and without reproach.
VIII. Men in general are apt to deviate into extremes. The lover of pleasure often pursues it till he becomes its victim or its slave. The lover of God sometimes grow into an enthusiast, and imposes upon himself self-denial without virtue, and mortification without use or value. From such weakness and such censure the character of Christ must be completely exempted. He did not disdain the social intercourse of life, or reject its innocent enjoyments.
IX. While we are displaying the various merits which adorned the personal character of Christ, one excellence more must not be passed in silence; the rare union of active and passive fortitude; the union of courage with patience; of courage without rashness, and patience without insensibility.
X. Such, then, is the unrivalled excellence of the personal character of Jesus Christ. Such is the proof which it affords that He was a teacher sent from God; and such is the example which He has left us, that we should follow His steps. (W. Barrow.)
Pontius Pilate
I. PILATE WAS WEAK--MORALLY WEAK. He sinned in spite of his better self. He was thoroughly convinced of the innocence of his prisoner. His conscience forbad him to inflict punishment. He made strenuous efforts to save Him. And yet, after all, He gave Him up to death, and furnished the soldiers needed for carrying out the sentence. How many in our day resemble him! Are not some of you as weak as he was? Have you not had convictions of duty as strong as his, and maintained them for a while as stoutly as he did, and yet failed at last to carry them out? Remember that convictions of sin and duty do not keep men from sin; nor do they excuse sin. Beware of substituting religious knowledge or sentiment for religious principle.
II. PILATE WAS WORLDLY. This explains his weakness. His feelings were overpowered by a selfish regard to his own interest.
III. PILATE WAS IRRELIGIOUS. Here was the secret of that fatal power which the world exerted upon him. He was worldly because his life was not guided and governed by true religion. This is the victory that overcometh the world--even your faith. (R. P. Pratten, B. A.)
Pontius Pilate
Let us consider, then, the strange behaviour of Pontius Pilate after our Lords formal acquittal.
I. HE DECLARES THE SAVIOUR TO BE INNOCENT, BUT HE DOES NOT SET HIM FREE.
II. HE DOES NOT SET HIM FREE, BUT ENDEAVOURS TO BE FREE FROM HIM--to get rid of Him.
III. HE ENDEAVOURS TO GET FREE FROM HIM, BUT RECEIVES HIM AGAIN AND AGAIN.
1. I find no fault in this Man--Pilate has minutely and thoroughly investigated the case of Him who was so eagerly accused by the people, and the result of this examination was the Lords acquittal. Well done, Pilate! you have taken the right way; only one step more, and the case will be honourably concluded! As a just judge you are bound to follow up your verdict by release. The little bit of nobleness which Pilate showed on his first appearance was fast declining, as generally happens when it is not founded on the fear of God. When a man has gone as far as to question what truth is, he will soon follow up his questioning with, What is justice? what is faith? what is virtue? The inevitable result of a perverse state of heart is that it must daily beget new perversities. Because Pilate was not moved by love of truth, it was impossible for him to be moved for any length of time by a sense of justice. He declares the Saviour to be free from guilt, but he does not set Him free. Even since the times have become Christian, and since men have become members of the Church of Jesus Christ, it is an universal fact that Pilates conduct has been repeated. Men have declared the Saviour free, but have not set Him free. Pilate was a Roman, and a Roman maxim it has ever been in Christianity to pay every possible outward respect to the Saviour, but not to set Him free. The Romish Church especially bound what ought especially to be free--the Word of Jesus Christ--the Bible--the gospel. They declare the Word of the Saviour to be free, but do not set it free. In the Middle Ages, under plea of its preciousness, they bound it with iron chains. At present they bind it by the approval of bishops, by episcopal approbation. Even in these days this Church has dared to brand Bible Societies as plague sores. Pontius Pilate was a Roman to whom truth was nothing, justice little, his own interest everything; therefore he did not set the Saviour free, though he declared Him to be entitled to freedom. And a Roman maxim it bus been to this very day to declare the Saviour free, but not to free Him. It is to the glorious Reformation that the honour belongs of having broken the chains by which Rome bound the Saviour. In the Church of the Reformation, our dear evangelical Church, Jesus is not only declared to be free, but is free. Freely He governs our Church; freely He communicates with every believing soul. May we, therefore, say that Pilatism exists no longer in evangelical Christianity? Ah! no, dearly beloved, we must sorrowfully confess that Satan did not fail to find an entrance again through a back door. For, among the numerous Christians who glory in Protestant freedom, many do not allow the Saviour to speak except at church on Sunday. He is not allowed to raise His voice during the week, nor in their own homes. What is this but declaring the Saviour to be free, and keeping Him bound? They bind Him to altar and pulpit; they hear Him every week or fortnight, but further advance is denied their Saviour. He is not permitted to leave the church nor go with them to their home. Mere church attendance is Pilatism; the Saviour is declared to be free, but He is not set free. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me. But, my friends, tot us who have given up our heart to the Saviour, to occupy a place in His throne-room, would it not be a subtle Pilatism if we lock the Saviour within the heart, and not set Him free for the whole life? Not only in the heart is the Saviour to have free range, but in the home, in your nursery and drawing-rooms, in your workshop, in your society, in your dally life and conversation, He is to be free, and the free ruler of your life. Oh, my friends, strive against Pilatism! Do not lock your Saviour in your church, nor in your heart, but allow Him to dispose of you how He will and where He will. The more He is allowed to shape a mans life, the more freedom will that man enjoy. Therefore, once again, away with Pilatism! Do not only declare the Saviour to be free, but set Him free indeed!
II. PILATE DOES NOT SET THE SAVIOUR FREE, BUT ENDEAVOURS TO GET FREE FROM Him He does not give Jesus His liberty, for fear of the people. He endeavours to get free from Jesus because he fears Jesus. The quiet dignity of the King of Truth grows more and more painful to him. The whole matter, which at first he thought a great ado about nothing, is taking such a turn that he feels quite uneasy. Is He a Galilaean? he asks. The Saviour was no Galilaean. It is from Bethlehem of Judaea that the Messiah of Israel has come! but the people say He is a Galilaean. This is sufficient for Pilate. He had oftentimes trenched upon Galilee, and had thereby become the bitter enemy of Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee. But now it is most opportune to him, that Galilee is a province beyonds his jurisdiction. Let Herod burn his fingers in this affair. At least, he, Pilate, will be rid of a case which is getting more and more troublesome. Do you know those people that practise in our day the most contemptible kind of Pilatism? They cannot explain the powerful impression which the exalted personage of the God-man makes upon man. The pale beauty of His cross appears an unnatural rebuke to the frivolous ideal of life which they have entertained. His stretched-out pierced hands are quivering hints and points of interrogation, and signs of pain and sorrow. His humiliating crucifixion bears so loud an evidence against their pride of ancestry, pride of culture, and pride of riches, that they endeavour to get free from Him at any cost. He is a Galilaean: thus runs the old Jewish lie, which history confuted long ago. A Galilaean Rabbi could never--no, never--become so potent, that eighteen centuries would circle around him like planets round the sun. But those men who endeavour to get free from the God-man, will always grasp at this straw of a miserable fiction. He is a Galilaean! He is a Galilaean, and they think they have discovered the magic spell by which they can with some show of reason get rid of their belief in the God-man, who has given His life a ransom for a sinful world. He is a Galilaean, they say, and with that they send the Saviour away. They send Him to sceptical philosophers, urging, Natural philosophy has explained this, and teaches us that miracles are impossible. Philosophy is a competent judge of the person of Jesus Christ, and of His miracles; and philosophers, not we, have to decide. And we submit to their judgment. It makes them somewhat uneasy to know that there are likewise believing philosophers; that a Copernicus begged from the Crucified no other mercy than was received by yonder malefactor; that a Kepler, a Newton were true followers of Jesus, and believed in His miracles, and had faith in His words. On this point, therefore, they maintain a silence as deep as that of the tomb. Or they send the Saviour to sceptical historians, saying, It is by history that the authenticity of the Bible is to be tested, and this science has broken a staff over the Scriptures. It is nothing to their purpose that believing historians place a high value on the Bible, that one of them has pronounced Jesus Christ to be the very key of history. This testimony, however, they care fully overlook. Or they send the Lord Jesus to sceptical theologians, saying, There are so many theologians who deny the divinity of Jesus, and theologians ought certainly to be possessed of the true knowledge. They overlook the believing divines who exist too, and who ought to know at any rate as well as they. In short, fidelity and justice concerning the Lord Jesus are quite out of the question with those people. They will get free from the Lord Jesus at any hazard; therefore they seek for Herods wherever they may be found.
III. IMPOTENT STRUGGLING! Foolish prudence! After all, they will not get free from the Saviour. Having entered a mans life, Jesus comes again and again, this way or that way, whatever may have been the turnings and windings of that life. Pilate endeavours to get free from the Saviour, but gets Him again and again. Pilate gets Jesus again from Herod, and receives Herods friendship besides. Pilate, on his part, to be sure would fain have renounced his friendship for Herod, if by so doing he had only got rid of the Lord Jesus. But his new friend had sent back the Saviour, and thus Pilate was obliged, much against his will, to concern himself further with the Saviour, and bring to an end a case which to himself was becoming more and more painful. And in the same condition in which Pilate was will all those who think and act like him ever be. Having once met the Saviour, they never get entirely free from Him, however they may struggle and whatever cunning devices they may make to accomplish this end. In the end they will avail nothing. Jesus comes again. His form assumes a more and more sorrowful aspect. His face becomes more grave and clouded. Jesus comes again. Each sound of the church bell reminds them, each Sunday admonishes them of Him. Jesus comes again. They do not get free from Him. They anxiously debar their home, their family, from His influences. Nevertheless, since the Spirit bloweth where it listeth, they cannot prevent their wives, nor daughters, nor sons from being converted; and every converted one is a living reproach to the unconverted. They cover, as it were, their heart with a coat of mail; they palisade their conscience; they fall into the habit of smiling at holy things; they affect the utmost indifference towards the God-man. Thus they live, thus they die; and when they are dying, again Jesus Christ is there; and in their dying moments His word sounds: Son of man, how often would I have drawn thee unto Me, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not! (Emil Quandt.)
The character of Pilate
The estimate which history has put upon Pilate is fair. We talk of artistic combinations and poetical justice. But no art and no poetry can come up to that dramatic intensity of contrast in which history makes such a man as Pilate judge and executioner of Jesus Christ. It is as in another generation when such a man as Nero sits as judge of such a man as St. Paul. We know Pilate by ten years of his jurisdiction. A cruel Roman viceroy, he had created and had quelled more than one rebellion by his hard hand. He is one of a type of men such as you find in Napoleons history, who have their eye always on the Emperor, and always mean to win his favour. For the Pilates of the world this backward look to their chief supplies the place of law. Does Tiberius wish it? Then one answers Yes. Does Tiberius dislike it? Then one answers No. In the long run such a second hand conscience fails a man. It failed Pilate. Tiberius recalled him. But Tiberius died before Pilate could appear at court. And, then, neglected by everybody, scorned, I think, by those who knew him best, Pilate, who had no conscience now he had no Tiberius, killed himself. Was there, in that loathsome despair of the life of a favourite whose game is played through, was there always the memory of one face, of one prisoner, of one execution? Did he remember that day when he tried to wash off guilt with water: Did he remember how the sky blackened on that day, and men said nature itself testified against the wrong which that day saw? (E. E. Hall, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On v1 1–25. The Trial Before Pilate. Described in Matt. 27:11–35;…
1–25. The Trial Before Pilate. Described in Matt. 27:11–35; Mark 15:1–23; John 18:28–19:16. See notes on Matthew and John. Led him to Pilate. The Sanhedrim, after a private conference, (Matt. 27:1–10), came in a body to accuse Jesus of sedition.
Forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar. This was utterly false (Matt. 22:21). That he is Christ a king. This was true, but not in the sense they made the charge. He did not claim to be an earthly king.
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I find no fault in him. This decision was given after an examination of Jesus (John 18:33–38). In this Jesus explained to Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world.
He sent him to Herod. Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee. The Jews in their clamor against Pilate's decision declared that Jesus was of Galilee; so he thought to get out of his difficulty by turning Jesus over to Herod, who was now in Jerusalem to attend the passover.
Herod … was exceeding glad. That he might gratify his curiosity to see Jesus. This was the Herod who had murdered John the Baptist.
Herod … mocked him. Pilate was a better man than Herod. Though he yielded weakly to the clamor, he was not a trifler.
Herod and Pilate became friends. Because of Pilate's courtesy in sending Herod a prisoner that belonged to his province. Why they were enemies is not stated.
Nor yet Herod. These words occur in another effort of Pilate to release Jesus, and imply that Herod had sent word that he found no guilt in the prisoner.
I will therefore chastise him. This was an effort to make a compromise. To gratify and save the pride of the Sanhedrim he will chastise an innocent man and then let him go.
Release unto us Barabbas. See notes on Matt. 27:15–26, for the choice of Barabbas rather than Christ.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Luk_23:1. Whole multitude.—Rather, “company” (R.V.). The word is a…
CRITICAL NOTES
Luk_23:1. Whole multitude.—Rather, “company” (R.V.). The word is a different one from that so often used to denote “the crowd,” or “the mob.” It here simply means the members of the Sanhedrim. Pilate.—His rule in Judæa had been marked by many acts of harshness and cruelty. His hatred of the people rendered it necessary for considerable adroitness to be made use of by the Jewish rulers to get him to do as they wished. They drop the charge of blasphemy in claiming to be the Son of God, and concoct an accusation of a political character.
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Luk_23:2. We found.—This a legal term, implying “we have tried and convicted him of.” This fellow.—Rather, “this man” (R.V.). Perverting.—Seducing, deceiving. The nation.—Rather, “our nation” (R.V.). Forbidding to give tribute.—This is a direct falsehood. See Luk_20:20-26. Christ a King.—This is a translation of the term Christ, or Anointed One, for Pilate’s benefit.
Luk_23:3. And Pilate asked Him.—The history in the fourth Gospel casts great light on Luk_23:3-4 (see Joh_18:33-38). Jesus had been brought into the Prætorium, while His accusers were without. Pilate examines Him, and finds that the kingdom spoken of is not “one of this world.” Then he returns to the accusers and declares Jesus to be innocent of the charge. Without the supplementary narrative of St. John, Pilate’s words in Luk_23:4 would scarcely be intelligible. Pilate must have known well that one who had done the things laid to the charge of Jesus would be no such object of hatred to the Sanhedrim. He may have had some previous knowledge of the actual character of Christ’s public ministry.
Luk_23:5. And they were the more fierce.—Rather, “but they were the more urgent” (R.V.); or perhaps the words mean “they strengthened” or “redoubled the charge.” All Jewry.—Rather, “all Judæa” (R.V.). This is another indication of more prolonged labours in Judæa than are recorded in detail in the synoptical Gospels. From Galilee.—Perhaps this is mentioned to provoke Pilate against Jesus, because of his quarrel with the Galilæans (Luk_13:1) and enmity against their ruler (Luk_23:12); it serves, however, only to give Pilate an apparent way out of the difficulty.
Luk_23:7. Sent Him.—The word is a technical one, and implies transference of a case to a court of competent jurisdiction. Also was at Jerusalem at that time.—I.e., the Passover-time. Herod usually resided at Tiberias, but had come up to Jerusalem to the celebration of the Passover; Pilate, who usually resided at Cæsarea, had come up to see to the maintenance of order while the capital was crowded with pilgrims. The purpose of Pilate in sending Jesus to be tried by Herod was to remove the responsibility of condemning an innocent person from himself, and to conciliate the Jewish ruler At that time.—Lit., “in these days” (R.V.).
Luk_23:8. Desirous to see Him.—Cf. Luk_9:7-9. St. Luke shows himself specially well informed in matters concerning Herod Antipas. Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward (Luk_8:3), was in Jerusalem at this time (Luk_24:10), and was a most faithful disciple of Jesus. She may have supplied information concerning Herod’s relations with our Lord. Heard many things of Him.—Omit “many things”; omitted in R.V. “Had heard concerning Him.”
Luk_23:9. Answered him nothing.—“The murderer of the Baptist, who was living in open incest, and who had no higher motive than curiosity, deserved no answer” (Farrar).
Luk_23:10. Vehemently accused Him.—Probably this refers to accusations of blasphemy, added to those made before Pilate; the former, Herod, as a Jew, might be expected to treat as of grave importance.
Luk_23:11. Men of war.—I.e., the body-guard in attendance upon Herod. Set Him at nought.—Treated as deserving of nothing but contempt. Gorgeous robe.—“The same word as in Act_10:30—‘shining’—not purple or scarlet (as in Mat_27:28; Joh_19:2), but white, in allusion to the claim to kingly dignity” (Speaker’s Commentary).
Luk_23:12. Were made friends together.—Rather, “became friends with each other” (R.V.). At enmity.—The cause is unknown; probably it was about some question of jurisdiction. Herod may have resented Pilate’s summary procedure in the case of the Galilæans above mentioned.
Luk_23:14. Ye have brought.—Rather, “ye brought” (R.V.).
Luk_23:15. For I sent you to him.—A better supported reading gives, “for he sent Him back unto us” (R.V.). Is done unto Him.—R.V. has “done by Him.” A much better rendering is suggested in The Thinker, September 1893: “Nothing deserving death has been laid to His charge.” The writer contends that the word is used as a technical term for taking proceedings against any one accused, and he points out that this view is substantiated by the rendering in the Vulgate, not “factum ab eo,” but “actum ei,” ago, meaning bringing a suit, raising an action, or taking proceedings, civil or criminal—against any one.
Luk_23:17. For of necessity, etc.—This verse is omitted in the R.V., as insufficiently supported by MS. authority. It may be a gloss, but one phrase in it, translated “of necessity,” is highly idiomatic and characteristic of St. Luke’s style. It is not a mere repetition of any of the parallel passages. In some MSS. it occurs after Luk_23:19. “The Gospels are our only authority for the existence of the custom of releasing a prisoner at this religious festival, but it is in accordance with Roman policy” (Farrar).
Luk_23:18. All at once.—R.V. “all together”; lit. “in full number.” Barabbas.—The name is not strictly a proper name, but means “son of a [distinguished] father,” or if the reading Barrabban, found, as Jerome says, in the Gospel according to the Hebrews, be preferred, “son of a teacher.” In Mat_27:16 some MSS. of no great authority have “Jesus Barabbas.” As an insurgent against Roman rule, he probably enjoyed a certain measure of popularity in some sections of Jewish society.
Luk_23:20. Willing to release Jesus.—Rather, “desiring to release Jesus” (R.V.).
Luk_23:21. But they cried.—Rather, “but they shouted” (R.V.).
Luk_23:22. Hath He done.—Rather, “hath this man done” (R.V.).
Luk_23:24. Gave sentence.—The word is a technical one, and means “gave final sentence.”
Luk_23:25. Him that for sedition, etc.—This substitution of a description for the name Barabbas is an indication of the writer’s indignation. It is but seldom that the evangelists display personal feeling in their narratives. Whom they had desired.—Rather, “whom they had asked for.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_23:1-25
Various Forms of Antagonism to Christ.—In the trial before the ecclesiastical court of His nation Jesus had been condemned to death on the charge of blasphemy in claiming to be the Son of God. He is now brought before the civil court, in order that the sentence of death may be ratified, and is subjected to examination both by the Roman judge and by Herod, to whom, as the ruler over Galilee, the case was referred. A court of justice is usually an impressive sight, and suggests to a thoughtful mind the Divine tribunal before which all men must appear. But in this case accusers and judges are seen to be animated by malign and unworthy motives, and the forms of justice are simply used to cloak the murder of an innocent man. We see enmity, frivolity, and injustice in those who co-operated together to put Jesus to death.
I. The enmity of the priests.—The grounds of their hatred were their dislike of the teaching of Christ, their irritation at His correction of the abuses at which they had connived, and their jealousy at the popularity which He enjoyed in certain parts of the country and in certain sections of society. They felt forced into antagonism towards Him—that they must either submit humbly to Him or crush Him; for He did not merely ask for toleration, but required them to accept Him as the Messiah and the Son of God. And a like choice is now forced upon all to whom Christ is presented; they must either yield to Him or resist Him. He cannot be ignored. So resolute are they in their determination to secure His death, that they are unscrupulous in selecting means for their end. A heathen judge, they know, would probably refuse to sanction a sentence of death on a charge of blasphemy, and therefore they proceed to accuse Him of being a disturber of the public peace and of setting up claims to sovereignty which must necessarily lead to insurrection against the Roman power. And when these accusations break down, they use their influence with the people, to stir them up to demand the death of the prisoner, in spite of the judge’s repeated protests that he could find no fault in Him. Their conduct strikes us with the deeper horror when we reflect that they were men who served at God’s altar, and who should have been conspicuous examples of uprightness and compassion. The evil-doing of a minister of religion is all the more heinous because of the vows of consecration which rest upon him.
II. The frivolity of Herod.—Jesus was sent to Herod because, as a Galilæan, He belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction. Could there be a greater contrast between king and subject than was here presented? The record of Herod’s life is black with many a stain. He had been a debauchee and a murderer, and his guilt was enhanced by the fact that he sinned against the light—he had stifled the voice of conscience, violated the precepts of the religion he professed, and resisted and slain the messenger from God who rebuked his evil life. He was the only man concerning whom Christ used an epithet of sheer contempt—“that fox.” He had once been susceptible to religious impressions, and for a time shown some signs of amendment of life, in obedience to the preaching of John the Baptist. But the sin he would not give up had seared his conscience and hardened his heart. He had once trembled at the report of Christ’s teaching and works, from the superstitious belief that this new prophet was the Baptist come to life again. But all this is now past. He has now no fears in the presence of Christ Himself, but is glad to see Him, as one of whom he has heard so much. He thinks of Christ as a wonder-worker, and hopes to induce Him, as the price of His acquittal, to perform some miracle. So frivolous and debased has he become that he looks upon Jesus as a kind of juggler or magician, who may provide some amusement for him by performing some wonderful feat. “Then he questioned with Him in many words; but He answered him nothing.” He had nothing to say to one of Herod’s temper and spirit. There were no formal judicial proceedings conducted by the Jewish king, or Christ might have opened His lips in defence or protest, as He had done in the presence of His other judges. The Saviour was silent because He would not gratify the cravings of an empty curiosity. Yet let us not imagine that mere indignation and contempt animated our Lord in thus dealing with Herod. The silence He maintained was the very thing most fitted to speak home to the conscience and heart of the Jewish king. “Had there been a spark of conscience left in him, those Eyes, looking him through and through, and that Divine dignity, measuring and weighing him, would have caused his sins to rise up out of the grave and overwhelm him. Jesus was silent, that the voice of the dead Baptist might be heard.” The profound significance of the silence of Jesus was evidently not understood by Herod, or he did not wish to understand it. He affected to treat Christ as a pretender whose claims had broken down and whose power had deserted Him; and with mockery and contempt he dismissed Him from his presence.
III. The injustice of Pilate.—Had the Roman judge been called upon to deal with religious questions, his task would have been a difficult one, owing to his ignorance and inexperience, and we would sympathise with the perplexities of his position. As it was, the path of duty should have been very plain to him. He had found the Prisoner innocent of the charges brought against Him—charges which were of a kind easily dealt with, as they involved merely matters of fact and not of belief or opinion. All that he was required to do was to order the release of a man whom, after full examination, he had found innocent of the charges brought against Him; and his failure to do this has rendered his name infamous in history. He was fully aware of the evil motives that animated the enemies of Christ, and of their hypocrisy in pretending to be zealous for the maintenance of Roman authority and for the payment of tribute to Cæsar. Yet he allowed himself to be used as the tool of men whom he despised, for the gratification of an enmity in which he did not share. His sole motive was to acquire a little popularity with his subjects, and he did not consider the judicial murder of an innocent man too high a price to pay for it. Nor would he have hesitated to do as he was asked but for the strange impression produced upon him by the demeanour and words of Jesus. And so he tries one way after another to escape from the perpetration of the crime into which he was being forced; he seeks to impose the responsibility of dealing with the case upon another; he suggests scourging as a substitute for death; and he proposes to grant release as an act of favour. His miserable subterfuges only revealed his weakness and indecision to those who were resolute that their victim should not escape out of their hands. The case of Pilate shows us how dangerous it is to resist the voice of conscience, to what fatal errors indecision and infirmity of purpose may expose us, and how selfish aims may blind the soul to the beauty and majesty of Christ.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_23:1-25
Luk_23:1-12. Jesus before Pilate and Herod.
I. The Jews brought three charges against Jesus.—All of these were carefully chosen to influence Pilate against Him. Two of them were false—that He perverted the nation, and that He forbade to give tribute to Cæsar. The third was true in the letter, but thereby the more treacherously false in the spirit—that He claimed to be Christ—a king. Pilate took up the last only, and learned that Christ’s kingdom was not temporal, but spiritual.
II. The mob expected this.—But Pilate can be moved by clamour and threats. And Pilate gladly evades responsibility by sending Jesus to Herod.
III. Herod is pleased to see Jesus.—But his pleasure arises from vulgar curiosity—he hopes to see some miracle done by Him. But Jesus is silent before Herod. What a lesson in that! He conversed with the ignorant Roman, but to the well-taught Hebrew’s questions He has nothing to say. For Herod has thrown away exceptional opportunities, and now what is there but a fearful looking-for of judgment? Hastings.
Luk_23:1. “Led Him unto Pilate.”—The heathen world becomes partaker with the Jewish in the greatest wickedness that has ever been committed. In this it appears that the true light is hated as well by those who are under the Law as by those who are without the Law, and the judgment (Rom_3:19-20), appears as a perfectly righteous one. But at the same time there is also revealed therein the grace of God, as having appeared to all who believe, without respect of persons (Rom_3:21-31).—Van Oosterzee.
Luk_23:2. Began to accuse Him.”—Note
(1) the contemptuous description—“this fellow” or “man,” without naming Him;
(2) the affected gravity of the accusers—“we found”;
(3) the pretence of consulting for the best interests of the people—“our nation” (R.V.).
The Threefold Accusation.—
1. His seeking to turn the people aside from the good road on which they and the Romans would have them to walk.
2. Forbidding payment of tribute to Cæsar.
3. Claiming to be a king.
“Christ a King.”—The explanation of Christ as meaning a king is a stroke of malice. It was only by attributing a political meaning to the title of king that the accusation of forbidding to pay tribute could be brought against Him. If He were a king in the ordinary sense of the word He must necessarily forbid the payment of tribute to any other but Himself. They declare that He has done what, according to their theory, He was logically bound to do.
Luk_23:3. “The King of the Jews.”
I. Jesus did not look much like a king.—He stood there, with hands bound, and a cord round His neck. Pilate’s question sounds like ridicule. Yet Jesus answered, “Yes, I am a King.” Strange answer! Where were His throne, His crown, His sceptre, His royal robe? Who recognised His sway? Pilate probably looked at Him with mingled contempt and pity.
II. But to us to-day how different does it all appear!—Christ is on the throne. In heaven He is honoured as “King of kings.” On His head are many crowns. All over the earth, as well, His sway is felt.
III. And He was really a king when He stood before Pilate.—For His kingdom is spiritual, a kingdom of truth, righteousness, grace, holiness, love. He seemed the weakest of men; in reality He was the grandest, mightiest, kingliest. The real power of the world is Christ’s power—the kingdom whose sway is over human hearts and lives.—Miller.
Luk_23:4. “I find no fault.”—Though Jesus had confessed that He claimed to be a king (Luk_23:3), the conversation which is recorded in Joh_18:33-38 had clearly proved to Pilate that he had not to do with one who was a rival to Cæsar.
Luk_23:5. “He stirreth up the people.”—The false accusations are a testimony to Christ’s integrity. None of the things He had actually said and done could be brought forward as a charge against Him.
“To this place.”—An allusion to the triumphal entry of Christ into the city a few days before.
Luk_23:6. “Whether the man were a Galilæan.”—Those who gave the information to Pilate were ignorant of the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
Luk_23:7. “Sent Him to Herod.”—Not necessarily to relieve himself from responsibility, but perhaps either to obtain a favourable opinion from Herod concerning the accused or to elicit some further information in reference to the case, as well as to show courtesy to the Jewish king.
Luk_23:8-12. Jesus and Herod.
I. Herod’s reception of Jesus was characteristic.—He was not abashed or terrified. He once had been so, but all that was past. He was “exceeding glad” to see Jesus. It was a new excitement. And it was also a compliment from the Roman. And chiefly he hoped to see Jesus work a miracle. Now was his chance to gratify his curiosity and wonder. He put Christ on the level of a new singer or dancer. He expected entertainment from Him. He addresses Him in a friendly way. He talks of religion, and waits for no replies. No mouth is more voluble than that of a characterless man of feeling.
II. Christ has nothing to say to such a man.—Herod grew angry at His silence, but Jesus held His peace. For one thing the entire proceedings were irrelevant. Jesus had been sent to Herod to be tried, not to be made a spectacle of. Religion to Herod was a mere diversion. So Christ will not stoop to please him. He has nothing to say to such a character. There are many to whom religion and its services are only a form of amusement or dissipation. Christ never speaks to the soul in such surroundings. Did Jesus miss an opportunity? Should He have spoken? His silence was in itself an eloquent appeal. Christ’s silence is the most eloquent of all appeals.
III. Did Herod understand the meaning of Christ’s silence?—We cannot tell. It is impossible to say. Probably he did not wish to understand it. At all events, he acted as if he did not; he treated it as if it were stupidity. Jesus, he thought, was discredited, was an impostor, a mere pretender. So he thought, and so he said, and his satellites chimed in. And they would, doubtless, think it a great stroke of wit for Herod to send Jesus back to Pilate with a gorgeous robe cast over His shoulders, probably in imitation of the white robe worn at Rome by candidates for office. The suggestion was that Jesus was a candidate for the throne of his country, but one so ridiculous that it would be a mistake to treat Him with anything but contempt.—Stalker.
Luk_23:8. “Hoped to have seen some miracle.”—No petitioner, however humble, ever had his hopes disappointed when he applied to Christ for relief; yet Christ defeats the hopes of this frivolous prince.
Luk_23:9. “Answered him nothing.”—Mark
(1) the wisdom,
(2) the dignity,
(3) the eloquence of this silence. “The shade of John could have observed no more inviolable silence, if it had really appeared to his murderers” (Van Oosterzee).
Luk_23:10-11.
I. The hatred of the priests.
II. The contempt of the courtiers.—How easily might Christ have overwhelmed both with confusion! Yet He refuses to work any miracle for His own advantage now, as in the temptation in the wilderness.
Luk_23:10. “Vehemently accused Him.”—From Luk_23:15 we learn that Pilate had commanded His accusers to appear before Herod. Doubtless in any case they would have gone, in order to try to prevent their Victim’s escape from condemnation. The indifference manifested by Herod only increased their vehemence in accusing Him; yet, after all, it was Herod’s disappointment, and not their accusation, that led to fresh ignominy being heaped upon the Saviour.
Luk_23:11. “Set Him at nought.”—“He is despised and rejected of men. He was despised and we esteemed Him not.”—Isa_53:3.
“Mocked Him.”—The priests accuse the Saviour, the courtiers mock Him. The former are animated by hatred, the latter by contempt.
“A gorgeous robe.”—Unconsciously Herod did honour to Christ, as did Pilate afterwards in the title which he ordered to be affixed to the cross.
Luk_23:12. “Became friends together.”—Though the coalition of Herod and Pilate was not based upon any active enmity to Christ, yet by the indecision of the Roman judge and the indifference of the Jewish king, the way was prepared for the unjust sentence of death being passed upon the Saviour. And so their conduct was a virtual fulfilment of the prophecy in Psa_2:2. Cf. Act_4:27.
Luk_23:13-25. “Back to Pilate.”—Herod’s worldliness was of a frivolous type. Pilate’s was strenuous—the worldliness which makes self its aim and subordinates everything to success. The more common type. It reveals itself in Pilate under the search-light of Christ’s scrutiny.
I. Pilate should have released Jesus, on receiving Him back from Herod.—But he most unjustly threatens to scourge Him, as a sop to the rage of the mob, and then set Him at liberty as a tribute to justice. A most unjust proceeding! but characteristic of the man. The spirit of compromise was characteristic of Rome. Manœuvre and expediency were universal. It is not true that this spirit is always and everywhere displeasing to God?
II. He grasps at a way of escape.—It was the custom to release a prisoner on the Passover morning. He welcomes the chance of releasing Christ. He offers Jesus to the crowd—unjustly—for Jesus was not a criminal; and worse, he was staking the life of an innocent man on a guess, which might be mistaken, as to the fancy of the mob. He, doubtless, considered it kind. And the offer he makes—Jesus or Barabbas—is the essence of all the great choices of life. Every individual has to face this decision.
III. The mob chooses Barabbas.—A surprise, a staggering blow, to Pilate. Jesus is left on His hands. “What shall I do with Jesus?” He tries to free himself of guilt. He washes His hands theatrically. He ought to have exerted them rather. Blood does not come off so easily. He could not thus abnegate responsibility and cast it upon others. He ought to have opposed the popular will at all risks. But this would have meant loss to himself. The mob gained their end. They clamoured for Christ’s blood, and the will of Pilate broke down before their well-directed persistency.—Stalker.
Luk_23:13. “And the people.”—Pilate communicates his views both to the rulers and to the assembled people, for both were now associated together in seeking to have a sentence of condemnation passed upon Jesus.
Luk_23:14. Three Good Points in Pilate’s Procedure—
I. He had carefully investigated the case.
II. He had declared his conviction of the innocence of Jesus.
III. He had sought the opinion of one who was qualified to give a decision upon the questions at issue.
“Perverteth the people.”—I.e., one who turns them from their allegiance to Cæsar.
Luk_23:15. “Nor yet Herod.”—The phrase implies that if even Herod, though well acquainted with the Jewish Law, and, as the sovereign of the accused, especially solicitous that He might not be allowed to stir up the people against the Romans, Herod’s patrons—if even he could find no matter of complaint, the case might be looked upon as decided.
Luk_23:16. “Chastise Him and release Him.”—Pilate hoped, by this proposal, to effect two objects:
1. He would not burden his own conscience by imposing a heavier sentence.
2. He would do something towards satisfying the enmity of the Jews against the Saviour. A certain measure of mercy towards Jesus is implied in the suggestion; but “the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.”
Luk_23:17. “Must release one.”—And what does this signify but that at this great Feast, the true Passover, we, to whom death is due, are let go free? Christ is taken; we, who are guilty, like Barabbas, escape.”—Williams.
“He must release.”—Perhaps this custom commemorated the great national deliverance from Egypt, and so was appropriate at the time of the Passover.
Luk_23:18. “Release unto us Barabbas.”—I.e., one who was actually a revolutionary—guilty of the same kind of crime as that of which they had accused Jesus.
Luk_23:19. “And for murder.”—In this and in Luk_23:25 there is an undertone of indignation at the blindness and hardness of heart which impelled the Jews to make such a choice. Cf. Act_3:14, “But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you.”
Luk_23:20. “Spake again to them.”—The substance of his speech or exclamation is not given, but may be guessed from the words “desiring to release Jesus.” The excited multitude interrupted him and did not allow him to give full expression to his desire.
Luk_23:21. “Crucify Him.”—For the first time the terrible cry is here heard, which, as the secret wish and thought of the chief priests, is now by these placed upon the people’s lips, and with fanatical rage raised by them.—Van Oosterzee.
Luk_23:22. “What evil hath He done?”—It is very noteworthy that Pilate took step after step to secure the acquittal of Jesus.
1. He emphatically and publicly announced His perfect innocence.
2. He sent Him to Herod.
3. He made an offer to release Him as a boon.
4. He tried to make scourging take the place of crucifixion.
5. He appealed to compassion.—Farrar.
Luk_23:23. “And of the chief priests.”—Even they, unmindful of decorum, join in the impetuous cry of the raging people for blood.
Luk_23:24. “It should be as they required.”—The weakness of Pilate led him to become the confederate of those whose hatred of Christ he did not partake in. His case is a striking illustration of the saying, “He that is not with Me is against Me.”
Luk_23:25. Fatal Decision.
I. So ends Pilate’s weak struggle with his conscience and with his sense of right.—He has tried every way to evade the issue; then he has temporised; at last he has yielded. His name is pilloried for ever as the man who delivered Jesus to the will of the mob. He is known by no other act. Better a thousand times to have remained in obscurity.
II. He took water to wash his hands.—In symbol he declared that he was not responsible for Christ’s death. It was in vain. The water did not wash away one particle of his guilt. On him the final responsibility rested. No other could send Jesus to the cross. That others urge us to sin does not take away our guilt for that sin. No being in the universe can compel us to do wrong; if, then, we do wrong, the sin is our own.
III. The Jews took the responsibility of Christ’s death.—“His blood be on us, and on our children!” The self-imprecation was awfully fulfilled. The story of the next forty years is the terrible record of its fulfilment. The crime was successful, but what came of the success in the end? Sin always brings woe. The worst of all sins is sin against the Lord Jesus Christ.—Miller.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 6 Mat 27:1-14; Mar 15:1-5; Luk 23:1-5; Joh 18:28-38. “Then…
CHAPTER 26.
JESUS AT PILATE’S BAR
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Mat 27:1-14; Mar 15:1-5; Luk 23:1-5; Joh 18:28-38. “Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the judgment-hall.”
When I was in Jerusalem last November and December, I went directly from the Sanhedrin hall, on Mount Zion in the west, to Pilate’s judgment- hall, north-east wall, on the intervening slope between Mount Moriah and Bezetha. “And it was morning.” Thus Jesus has been up all night, dragged hither and thither, abused and afflicted by His enemies, and must be awfully fatigued and exhausted. “And they did not go into the judgment- hall, in order that they may not be polluted, but may eat the Passover.” This illustrates the nonsense into which Satan runs religious people when they give him a chance. Here they are so fearful of contracting ceremonial defilement that they will not so much as enter the Gentile judgment-hall; while they are already guilty of the blackest murder ever concocted in the bottomless pit. You must not think that these things are peculiar to the ancient times. The world is full of them now.
“Then Pilate came out to them, and said, What accusation do you bring against this Man? They responded and said, If He were not an evildoer, we had not delivered Him to thee. Then Pilate said to them, You indeed take Him, and judge Him according to your law. Then the Jews said to him, It is not lawful for us to kill any one, in order that the word of Jesus may be fulfilled, which He spoke, signifying by what death He was about to die.” Very early in our Lord’s ministry (Joh 3:14), in the case of the brazen serpent, He predicted the manner of His death by crucifixion. This was a Roman punishment, the Jews having no such a law. Consequently He was delivered by the Jews to the Romans for execution. You see here the dilemma in which the Jews were involved.
a. Having condemned Him to die for blasphemy, they now wake up to the fact that Judea is no longer free, but a Roman province, the prerogative of capital punishment having already passed out of the hands of the Jews and become the sole right of the Romans. Consequently they have to take Him to Pilate, the Roman proconsul.
b. By the time they arrive at Pilate’s judgment-hall, they have awakened to the fact that the Romans have no law against blasphemy, for which they have condemned Jesus to die. Consequently they see that it will be utterly unavailable to bring this charge against Him before a Roman court. Therefore they have no bill of charges to present to Pilate justifying the commitment of a prisoner to his adjudication.
c. Now they find themselves in a serious puzzle, as the overwhelming probability favors the conclusion that if they present to Pilate the prisoner charged with nothing but blasphemy, on which Roman legislation is utterly Silent, Pilate will simply throw the case out of court, refuse to adjudicate, and drive them all away from his tribunal, as Gallio did at Corinth (Acts 18) when Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, brought Paul to him for condemnation, having no charge against him except matters pertaining to their own religion, which the proconsul looked upon as superstition, and consequently, threw it out of court, driving the Jews away from his tribunal, when the Gentile multitude became so disgusted with the foolish persecutions of the Jews against an innocent man that they took Sosthenes and gave him a good thrashing, which seems to have proved a blessing to him, as we only hear of him once more (1 Corinthians 1), when he is associated with Paul in the evangelistic work at Ephesus, having been converted and turned missionary.
d. The final result of all this tergiversation is, that they drop the charge of blasphemy altogether, and take up a new one, on which there had been no action, committing Him to Pilate under the accusation of high treason, claiming to be King of the Jews, and consequently a rival of the Roman emperor.
Luk 23:2. “And they began to accuse Him, saying, We found Him revolutionizing the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is, Christ a King.” You see how adroitly they manipulated the matter. As the Scriptures denominate Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, they construe Him as claiming to be King, and consequently a rival of Caesar.
Joh 18:33-38. “Then Pilate went again into the judgment-hall, and spoke to Jesus, and said to Him, Art Thou the King of the Jews? Jesus responded to him, Do you speak this of yourself, or did others tell you concerning Me? Pilate responded, Whether am I a Jew? Thy nation and the chief priests delivered Thee to me; what hast Thou done Jesus responded, My kingdom is not from this world , If My kingdom were from this world, My servants would fight for Me, in order that I may not be delivered to the Jews. But now My kingdom is not from thence.” This statement of our Savior in reference to His kingdom is frequently quoted as an argument against the coming Millennial Theocracy; but a moment’s reflection reveals the utter impertinency of such an application. Of course, God’s kingdom is not of this world, but of heaven; but that is no reason why, it should, not bear rule over this world. The kingdom of God is here now; yet it is not of this world. The kingdom of Satan is here; not of this world, but of hell, and a usurpation on the earth. When Satan is east out and imprisoned in hell (Revelation 20), thus all obstructions to the heavenly kingdom being removed, the latter, will, so wonderfully prevail on the earth as to receive a boundless, new impetus, not eliminating grace, but adding to it glory, when
“He shall have dominion over river, sea, and shore, Far as the eagle’s pinion or dove’s light wing can soar.”
“Then Pilate said to Him, Art Thou not then a King? Jesus responded, Thou sayest that I am.” N.B. — This is an Oriental form of positive affirmation, Jesus admitting to Pilate that He is King. “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, that I may witness to the truth.” His is significantly a kingdom of truth, in contradistinction to Satan’s kingdom of falsehood and error. “Every one being of the truth heareth My voice.” Poor Pilate was not of the truth. He was a corrupt thieving politician, therefore he did not hear the voice of Jesus, but came to a miserable end, dying a suicide in lonely exile, having been degraded and banished by Caligula, the Roman emperor.
“Pilate says to Him, What is truth?” Pilate took up the idea that He was a dreamy, visionary philosopher, gone wild with hard study, imagining that He was a King, and that He had found out the truth, as so many Greek sages claimed to have done; meanwhile he had no confidence in His claims to have discovered the truth. Consequently, when he asked the question, he goes right away, not waiting for an answer.
“Saying this again, he went out to the Jews, and tells them, I find nothing criminal in Him.” The Roman Empire had conquered all the world, and was at that time ruling all nations. The very idea that a poor prisoner in bonds, without an army to defend Him, should claim to be King of the Jews was, in Pilate’s judgment, sheer nonsense. Consequently he looks upon the royal claims of his prisoner as simply a matter of ridicule. Believing Him to be a harmless fanatic, dreaming that He is King of the Jews, therefore he makes short work of the judgment by bringing in a verdict of innocence.
Mat 27:12-14. “And while He was being accused by the high priests and elders, He responded nothing. Then Pilate says to Him, Do You not hear how many things they witness against You? And He responded to him not a word, so that the governor was astonished exceedingly.” Will you not follow the example of Jesus, when people falsely accuse you, and keep silent? Let them tell; ever so many scandals on you, give them no attention whatever; and they will soon get ashamed and let you alone, and in all probability make a specialty of showing you kindness.
Luk 23:4-5. “Pilate said to the chief priests and the multitudes, I find nothing criminal in this Man. And they continued to become more and more uproarious, saying that He revolutionizes the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee even unto this place.” The sun having risen about five is rapidly climbing the Oriental skies, and pouring down, the day from the summit of great Mount Olivet. His enemies, having worked hard all night to get Him condemned and killed before day, lest the people rally and fight, for Him, are now in an awful dilemma. They have Him on hand and are determined to kill Him; meanwhile the people are pouring in from all directions, and they awfully fear an outbreak, in which they will very likely be killed.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 The Cross the expression of man’s unbelief. Crucifixion was…
Luk 23:21
The Cross the expression of man’s unbelief. Crucifixion was the death of the outcast only,—the Gentile outcast. "Crucify Him," then, meant, "Let Him die the worst of deaths, the Gentile death, the death that is so specially connected with the curse; the death that proclaims Him to be not merely an outcast from Israel, an outcast from Jerusalem, but an outcast from the Gentiles, an outcast from the race."
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I. It was thus that man rejected Christ—civilised man, educated man, religious man! It was thus that the natural heart spoke out, and showed the depths of its enmity and atheism—the extent of its desperate unbelief. All unbelief is rejection of the Son of God. Whatever be its evasions and subterfuges, and excuses, and fair pretences, this is its essence—rejection of the Christ of God.
II. And why this desperate rejection; this feeling of man towards the Christ? For many reasons; but chiefly for this, that God’s religion, of which Christ is the beginning and the ending is so thoroughly opposed to man’s religion, or man’s ideas of religion, that to accept Jesus of Nazareth would be a total surrender of self, a confession of the utter absence of all goodness, an overturning of every religious idea or principle which the flesh had cherished and rested on. Man’s alternative is—the denial of self, or the denial of Christ; the rejection of his own claims to be his own Saviour, or the rejection of the claims of Christ; the crucifixion of the flesh, or the crucifixion of Christ. Allow unbelief to take its own way and, run its course, and it will end in the crucifixion of the Lord of glory. It will prefer self, the flesh, the devil, the worst of criminals to Christ. "Not this man, but Barabbas!"
H. Bonar, Short Sermons, p. 157.
Luk 23:25
I. What was this will? What was the moving spring of their fierce resolution that Jesus of Nazareth should die? (1) It was their will that this stern censor of their manners and morals should die. This was, perhaps, the first and broadest reason of their hate. They writhed under His vehement denunciation of their sins—the bold hand which rent off the cloak of their sanctity, and revealed the foul sink of corruption that was beneath. (2) They willed that the witness to the truth should die. The Lord belonged to another world which they did not care to enter; a world which troubled their selfish, sensual lives. Men hate the witness of truth when they are bent on transgression. They cannot bear it, they will hot. (3) They willed that the teacher of the people, the friend of publicans and sinners, should die. They were a ruling class, almost a caste. And such rulers hate none so bitterly as those who speak loving, quickening, emancipating words to the poor. "The common people heard Him gladly." As society was then constituted in Judæa, that meant that He or the rulers must fall. (4) There was something deeper and more malignant than this. It was their will that their Saviour should die. One cannot shake off the impression, reading the Gospel narrative, that the rulers knew Him. Nicodemus was not without vision of the truth. Others must have shared his ideas. They felt that He had come to save them, and they would not be saved. This was the will of the Jews.
II. But what, meanwhile, was the will of God? St. Peter explains it (Act 2:23): "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." How is this? It was God’s will as well as their own; as far as the act was concerned, the Father delivered the well-beloved Son into the hands of the Jews. To understand this, we must consider (1) that it was not possible that the God-Man should be holden of death. The Jews willed that He should die, but what He was, what they hated, could not die. (2) Through death the power of Christ, His witness to the truth, His witness against sin, His redemptive work for mankind, became living, nay, all-pervading and almighty realities in the world.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p. 159.
References: Luk 23:26.—J. Vaughan, Sermons, 15th series, p. 149; A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country, p. 99; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 96. Luk 23:27.—Ibid., p. 100. Luk 23:27-31.—Ibid., vol. xxii., No. 1,320. Luk 23:28.—W. Morrison, Church of England Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 203.
Luk 23:28-31
Lessons of the Passion.
We have in this passage two lessons before us.
I. The first is the right and wrong view of Christ’s Passion: "Weep not over Me, weep for yourselves." These women were indulging the emotion, the sentiment, the luxury of weeping. They wept as all that is human in us does weep at the sight of pain, at the spectacle of sorrow, at the march of death. But their weeping was misapplied. As a merely natural expression of sorrow it was out of place. There was something in that spectacle above, beyond, and beside the mark of pity; there was something in that death which was in danger of being obscured and being lost sight of if it was wept over. If they could not see that death in a higher light than pity, they had better turn their weeping another way; they had better anticipate a terrific future which would claim a monopoly of tears for themselves and for their children. Now these things are our ensamples, they were written for our admonition. The Passion of our Lord is not in itself a thing for tears. He Himself, long centuries ago, went back into the heaven of His holiness and of His glory. To weep over Him, year after year, as these daughters of Jerusalem wept is too much or too little. He needs not, asks not, accepts not our compassion.
II. If these things are done in the green tree, what must happen to the dry? If He who knew no sin thus suffers, how much more the wicked and the sinner? The sufferings of Jesus Christ say to us, See what sin is, by seeing the Sinless suffer for it. If the green tree burned as it burned on Calvary, in misery, in anguish, in a hiding of God’s countenance, and a very dying under that cloud—if these things were done in the green tree—how must it be in the dry? How shall he escape the conflagration who is as fuel ripe for it? How shall he escape the everlasting burnings who has here despised the riches of God’s goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering, and treasured up for himself wrath in a day of wrath?
C. J. Vaughan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 225.
References: Luk 23:29.—J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 29. Luk 23:31.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 99; D. Fraser, Metaphors of the Gospels, p. 370; Homilist, vol. vi., p. 415. Luk 23:33,—Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 189; Ibid., vol. xiv., p. 158; Ibid., vol. xxiv. p. 300; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 108; Ibid., vol. vii., p. 266; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 101; F. W. Robertson, The Human Race and Other Sermons, p. 152; F. Temple, Rugby Sermons, 1st series, p. 298.
Luk 23:34
I. Jesus prays. It is something to be capable of prayer in acute anguish of body. He prays, not for Himself. That is more. A cry for pity, for relief, for mitigation, for death—a cry for patience, for faith, for grace, for heaven—this might be. But to forget self altogether in suffering, to think of others, to use that breath of life, each gasp of which is torture, in prayer for another life or another soul—this is not the manner of men, but it is the prayer of Christ. Yet once again, to think, even then of some loving and beloved one, some life next our own, and to pray for its welfare, and its salvation—this too might be—might just be. Jesus prays for His enemies, for His murderers, for His crucifiers. He prays, and He inspires the prayer; the first martyr, Stephen, prayed it after Him: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."
II. Inventive love, it has been written, makes ignorance a plea for mercy. These rude executioners, the direct objects of the intercession, might not the Sufferer have arraigned them for that ignorance which was doing despite to God Himself in the display of every hateful characteristic of the fallen and sinful nature. Evidently the ignorance is no innocence. Else why the prayer, Forgive them? St. Paul’s ignorance was no innocence, for he speaks of himself, in the same breath, as needing mercy, and mercy is, by definition, kindness to the sinful.
III. We see in all this the exceeding great love, the self-forgetfulness, of Jesus Christ: His considerateness, stronger than death, yea, prevalent because of death, towards men who pierce Him; His unprovokableness by slight or insult; His far-seeing hope for the unthankful and the evil. He looks to the end, the eventual state, the eternity to be lived through. Let Him see of the travail of His soul, in that one case over which alone you have control—your own. It has been written, "Wander whither thou wilt, thou must come at last to the place of a skull." Let it be to that Golgotha where Christ gave Himself to be life from the dead.
C. J. Vaughan, Words from the Cross, p. 1.
I. The first thing that strikes me in this passage, is that it is one of our Saviour’s dying sayings. His death must ever be the most public event in time—the central fact of history. All the children are sent for—all are called to look and listen while He is dying. Every dying word of His is set down with most exact minuteness, and set down for the purpose of perfect and eternal publication. No preacher like the dying Christ; no pulpit like the Cross; no congregation like that which was and ever is around it; no sermon like the seven sentences used there.
II. Observe, secondly, that this saying is one of seven. What is the deep thought that underlies this mystic seven? Looking intently on the surface, we recognise that, at least, here is the sign of "order, heaven’s first law," and have an evidence that the work finished by Jesus on the Cross has a Divinely symmetrical completeness. Looking below the surface, we gradually find that here, as in other Scripture passages, the number seven on any series of words or actions marks that series as conveying some revelation of God to us, which is distinguished even above His other revelations by its great glory and its importance.
III. We are struck with the fact that the first of these seven sayings of Christ crucified is a prayer for His crucifiers. As chance had nothing to do with making the sayings seven, so chance had nothing to do with the place of each in the order of succession. To our mind, this order shows development of a revelation and not mere sequence in time. It shows what so filled the Saviour’s heart when He was dying as to make this speech its first overflow.
IV. This prayer of love was effectual. When the Holy Spirit lighted up the meaning of the Cross, brought out its force, showed the crucifiers what they had been doing, made a judgment day in their souls, and pricked them to the heart; then they cried out, and looking to Him whom they had pierced, were forgiven.
C. Stanford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 232.
References: Luk 23:34.—Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. vii., p. 86; H. Wace, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 196; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 3rd series, p. 24; Ibid., 4th series, p. 28; J. Keble, Sermons for Holy Week, p. 247; Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts, p. 112; Ibid., Sermons, vol. xv., No. 897. Luk 23:35-37.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p. 206; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 160. Luk 23:39.—S. Minton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 198. Luk 23:39-43.—J. C. Ryle, Church Sermons, vol. i., p. 57; Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p. 193. Luk 23:39-45.—Ibid., vol. xii., p. 142; Ibid., vol. xiv., p. 236; Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 333; Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 217; R. C. Trench, Studies in the Gospels, p. 297. Luk 23:40-42.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii., No. 1881. Luk 23:41.—J. Keble, Sermons from Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday, p. 31.
Luk 23:42
Faith’s Language.
Note:—
I. The circumstances of this prayer. They were surely as unpropitious as any in which a heavy-laden sinner ever sought the Lord. How terribly short is the time he has left to devote to the business of eternity! Then think how hard it must have been to fix his thoughts and raise them upward at such a time. In no case is a deathbed scene the fittest place for serious thoughts and prayer, and his was no ordinary deathbed. Yet even then his mind was clear, and his spirit strong. The urgent demands of his suffering body hindered not the upward aspirings of his soul. Let no one, then, throw on his circumstances the blame of that neglect of his soul’s concerns which is all his own. The spirit that is all in earnest will press through all these obstacles.
II. The occasion of the prayer. Not only did hell lie all about him, but close at his side, vexing his soul with impious blasphemies, and almost shrouding from view the blessed Form on which he is striving to fix his eye, in a cloud of contumely and scorn. Yet even these adverse circumstances were turned, through the mighty power of grace, into an instrument of good. He is not satisfied with merely rebuking his companion’s blasphemies, he hastens to cast himself at the Saviour’s feet whom he blasphemed. This brings us to our third head, viz.—
III. The nature of the prayer itself. We notice (1) its brevity. Such prayers are the soul’s swift arrows, glowing sparks thrown off from the burning heat, gleaming for a moment, then vanishing out of sight. (2) Its comprehensiveness. If the words are few, how pregnant and how vast is the sense. (3) It was an act of worship, "Lord, remember me." It was an act of supplication, and as such, how all embracing! "Lord, remember me." What needed blessing, what conceivable work and gift of Divine grace is not included in it!
IV. The success of this prayer, How prompt, how immediate was the Saviour’s reply to the cry of the penitent. No sooner is the prayer offered than it is answered. While he is yet speaking, the Redeemer hears. He is in haste to meet the returning prodigal, and present him with the blessings of His goodness, the seals of His pardoning love.
I. Burns, Select Remains, p. 59.
Luk 23:42-43
I. We see here an illustration of the Cross in its power of drawing men to itself,
II. We have here the Cross as pointing to and foretelling the kingdom.
III. Here is the Cross as revealing and opening the true Paradise.
A. Maclaren, Sermons preached in Manchester, p. 153.
I. It is no over-wrought or exaggerated statement that the dying thief exhibited all the tokens which can ever be demanded of a genuine conversion. There was confession of sin, there was spirituality of mind, there was anxiety for others, there was the fullest recognition of Christ’s power to deliver; and there was a mighty faith which, nothing daunted by all the circumstances of apparent helplessness and defeat, was sufficient to confound and overcome distance, sprang beyond the line of death and shame, and seemed to gaze on the palace and the crown. The thief was perhaps the only individual who believed on Jesus when Jesus died; and certainly it was an amazing thing, that he who was hanging beside Christ should believe, while he who had lain in His bosom had doubted.
II. We may all be aware that what is called deathbed repentance has been identified with the repentance of this malefactor—that men have encouraged themselves from it, in deferring to the end of life the providing for eternity. So men forget (1) that two thieves were crucified with Christ, and although the one was saved, the other perished. He must be singularly unconcerned about his soul who can be satisfied in pursuing a plan which, on the best calculation, leaves exactly equal the chances of being condemned and of being saved. (2) There is not one amongst us who can possibly, when his deathbed draws nigh, stand morally in the same position as the thief on the cross. We cannot drive away the baptismal waters from our foreheads; we may make ourselves apostates—we cannot make ourselves heathens. (3) He who of set purpose defers repentance to a deathbed should be able to prove that the thief of set purpose deferred repentance to a deathbed, else the cases are so distinct that there is no excuse for believing that the final penitence of the one renders at all probable the final penitence of the other.
III. The history of the dying thief offers no encouragement to those who would defer repentance, but it does offer encouragement the fullest and the richest, to all who are sincerely desirous of being saved. Who can despair of finding mercy, when he sees a thief transported in a moment, from the Cross to Paradise? One thief, indeed, perished, though within reach of the Saviour, and therefore we are bound to guard against presumption; the other was saved, though in the jaws of destruction, and therefore we are bidden never to despair.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2,071.
References: Luk 23:42.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 323; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 159; F. O. Morris, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxii., p. 409. Luk 23:42, Luk 23:43.—S. Minton, Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 233; A. Scott, Ibid., vol. xxii., p. 76; T. T. Carter, Sermons, p. 47.
Luk 23:43
I. There was something of prophecy even in the word today. For crucifixion ended not, commonly, with the twelve hours, or the twenty-four; it was protracted often, in its horrors and its anguish, till the second day, the third, the fourth. There was a sound of mercy in the very today, promising a speedier end to those sufferings. In Paradise. That name of rest and felicity, appropriated in the Greek Bible to the original home of man’s innocence, is thus transferred by our Lord Himself to a state or region immediately beyond death, into which He Himself would enter that very day; so soon, therefore, as the warfare was accomplished, and the burden of the flesh laid aside. The today so powerfully emphasised leaves no doubt whatever upon this interpretation. Like other figures of Holy Scripture, Paradise is capable of more than one application; here to the intermediate, there to the final, home of the blessed dead; here to that presence of Christ which is instant upon dissolution, of which St. Paul says that he has a desire to depart and to be with Christ, elsewhere to that presence of Christ which waits for resurrection, for the glorious adoption and manifestation of the sons of God.
II. "Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." Wheresoever the Christian soul is while the body sleeps in dust, thither journeyed the Lord, brightening our Hades, as He also consecrated the grave. Whatsoever be the unseen home for us, between death and glory, such was it for Him. One mysterious passage seems to tell us that in that intermediate state the Spirit of Christ was not inactive; that the putting to death of the body was the quickening of the soul, and that in some errand of love and power He journeyed in that interval, carrying hope and salvation to some inmates of a less than perfect world. The text is a word of blessed hope for such as are mourning the blessed dead; for such, also, as feel that natural, that inevitable, human shrinking from a journey in the dark into an undiscovered country and an unrealised world. Christ is there in a sense in which He is not here; there are they, and there shalt thou be in thy season, with Him in Paradise.
C. J. Vaughan, Words from the Cross, p. 15.
References: Luk 23:43.—J. Keble, Sermons for Holy Week, p. 258; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 3rd series, p. 26. Luk 23:44-46.—J. Wells, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 421. Luk 23:45.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 267.
Luk 23:46
These words have two aspects, and the first of these is towards our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
I. In the one week of the year in which we commemorate His Cross and Passion, it ought to be the foremost thought of each of us how we can honour Him in the appreciation of what He did and suffered in working out our salvation. When we hear Him say at last, "It is finished," the warfare is accomplished, the victory won, atonement made, heaven opened for all who believe; when, finally, turning His latest thought of all to God, known, loved, and trusted in, we hear Him cry, amidst all the horror and darkness and anguish, "Father, into Thy hands 1 commend My spirit;" we shall feel that here, in the utterance of the mind that was in Christ, we have indeed the rightful Owner of our lives and of our hearts; we shall cry out to Him, with the energy of all that is in us, no longer faithless, but believing, "My Lord and my God."
II. The words before us have an aspect also towards ourselves. We know not the time nor the manner, but the fact of our own death is the one certain thing for all of us. The wise man, the tolerably sensible man, feels that a necessity is laid upon him of making provision for that end. There is only one thought, one utterance, which can be a satisfactory aid to ourselves, then, and it is here to-night in our view. In this one thing, we must not only learn from, but actually make our own, the Master’s word. The very words of Christ Himself have been the dying words of thousands of His saints. "Blessed are they," wrote the great reformer, "who die not only for the Lord as martyrs, not only in the Lord as all believers, but likewise with the Lord, as breathing forth their lives in these words, ’Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.’" These were his last words, and of many of his fellow-reformers and fellow-witnesses in all lands. That they may be ours, in form and substance, they must be the meditation of the life.
C. J. Vaughan, Words from the Cross, p. 85.
I. Observe that this verse represents to us one of the two main aspects of the Passion of our Lord—one, and one only. There is in a city in France a curiously wrought crucifix, which conveys to the spectator a totally different impression according as he looks at it. On one side it expresses anguish and grief; on the other, profound calm and submission. What is there represented to the sight is represented to the mind in the different speeches from the Cross. "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" is one; "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit," is the other. Both belong to our Saviour’s humanity, both are needed to convey to the world the full import of our Saviour’s mission.
II. "Father." That is the word which our Saviour adds to the prayer of the Psalmist. In Him He confided, and we with Him may safely confide also. It is this which gives to our resignation the rational understanding and affectionate character which alone befit the religion of reasonable human beings. We are subject, we submit ourselves—not to a blind fate which crushes us, not to an angry demon which needs to be appeased, not to an abstract doctrine which we cannot understand; but to One who rules us, guides us, chastises us for our good.
III. Take the next phrase: "Into Thy hands." This is doubtless a figure of speech, to speak of the hands of God; yet a figure now very expressive. The everlasting arms are beneath and around us. These are the hands into which we surrender ourselves: these are the hands at whose call we move.
IV. "I commend." That is, not only in a general sense, not only as giving back my trust, but, "I trust, I make over as a deposit, to Him the gift which He will keep for me." In that great act of self-sacrifice, Christ our Lord of His own free will laid down His life; He was not merely waiting for God’s call, He went forth to meet Him.
V. And what is it that we give? It is "my spirit;" not mere life only, not mere soul only, but the best part of our life, the best part of our soul, our spirit. The present life may be dark and stormy. There are many trials of the spirit of man, yet there is one sure remedy, and that is to trust the Father of spirits with the spirits that He has made.
A. P. Stanley, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 449.
I. The confidence here expressed by Jesus in reference to the Father was not a confidence at all grounded on His consciousness of the Father’s love and favour. There was no appeal made to that. It was grounded on the Infinite perfections of the Father’s righteousness and justice, and on the merits of the question. Christ claimed this of the Father. He rested upon the merit of His own work. He had done the work, and now He claimed the firstfruits in the way of recompense.
II. Was this confidence justified? What followed in the case of Christ? We know what became of His spirit, for He said Himself to the thief on the Cross, "Today thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." It is clear then, at all events, Christ being true, that His spirit went to Paradise. His body rested in peace until the third day. Then the Father commanded the angels to roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre; the angels rolled it away and the prisoner came forth. All power was given to Him. He was made Head over all things to the Church.
III. Look next at the parallel with regard to our own experience. Christ’s confidence is to be ours. The perfect work of Jesus Christ, on which He stood before His Father, is the work on which we stand before our Father. If at this moment we were dying, we have the same reason for saying, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," as Jesus Christ Himself had. It is not robbery of Christ to say that. Stand upon that truth in life and death, and you will stand upon it in eternity.
C. Molyneux, Penny Pulpit, new series, Nos. 395-6.
References: Luk 23:46.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 163; G. Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons, p. 180; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 3rd series, p. 36; Ibid., 4th series, p. 40; T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons, p. 207. Luk 23:46-49.—D. Davies, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 342. Luk 23:48.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv., No. 860. Luk 23:49.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 211; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 13th series, p. 117. Luk 23:50.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 459. Luk 23:51.—E. White, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 11. Luk 23:55.—J. Keble, Sermons for Holy Week, pp. 205, 215. Luk 23:56.—G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons, p. 258; G. Dawson, The Authentic Gospels, p. 275; R. S. Candlish, Scripture Characters and Miscellanies, p. 75. Luke 23—F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 343. Luk 24:1-8.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 302. Luk 24:2.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xii., p. 208.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v1 Luk 23:1 - Luk 23:12.
Luke
‘THE RULERS TAKE COUNSEL TOGETHER’
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Luk 23:1 - Luk 23:12.
Luke’s canvas is all but filled by the persecutors, and gives only glimpses of the silent Sufferer. But the silence of Jesus is eloquent, and the prominence of the accusers and judges heightens the impression of His passive endurance. We have in this passage the Jewish rulers with their murderous hate; Pilate contemptuously indifferent, but perplexed and wishing to shirk responsibility; and Herod with his frivolous curiosity. They present three types of unworthy relations to Jesus Christ.
I. We see first the haters of Jesus.
So fierce is their hatred that they swallow the bitter pill of going to Pilate for the execution of their sentence. John tells us that they began by trying to get Pilate to decree the crucifixion without knowing Jesus’ crime; but that was too flagrant injustice, and too blind confidence in them, for Pilate to grant. So they have to manufacture a capital charge on the spot, and they are equal to the occasion. By the help of two lies, and one truth so twisted as to be a lie, they get up an indictment, which they think will be grave enough to compel the procurator to do as they wish.
Their accusation, if it had been ever so true, would have been ludicrous on their lips; and we may be sure that, if it had been true, they would have been Jesus’ partisans, not His denouncers.’ The Gracchi complaining of sedition’ are nothing to the Sanhedrim accusing a Jew of rebellion against Rome. Every man in that crowd was a rebel at heart, and would have liked nothing better than to see the standard of revolt lifted in a strong hand. Pilate was not so simple as to be taken in by such an accusation from such accusers, and it fails. They return to the charge, and the ‘more urgent’ character of the second attempt is found in its statement of the widespread extent of Christ’s teaching, but chiefly in the cunning introduction of Galilee, notoriously a disaffected and troublesome district.
What a hideous and tragic picture we have here of the ferocity of the hatred, which turned the very fountains of justice and guardians of a nation into lying plotters against innocence, and sent these Jewish rulers cringing before Pilate, pretending loyalty and acknowledging his authority! They were ready for any falsehood and any humiliation, if only they could get Jesus crucified. And what had excited their hatred? Chiefly His teachings, which brushed aside the rubbish both of ceremonial observance and of Rabbinical casuistry, and placed religion in love to God and consequent love to man; then His attitude of opposition to them as an order; and finally His claim, which they never deigned to examine, to be the Son of God. That, they said, was blasphemy, as it was, unless it were true,-an alternative which they did not look at. So blinded may men be by prejudice, and so mastered by causeless hatred of Him who loves them all!
These Jewish rulers were men like ourselves. Instead of shuddering at their crime, as if it were something far outside of anything possible for us, we do better if we learn from it the terrible depths of hostility to Jesus, the tragic blindness to His character and love, and the degradation of submission to usurpers, which must accompany denial of His right to rule over us. ‘They hated Me without a cause,’ said Christ; but He pointed to that hatred as sure to be continued towards Him and His servants as long as ‘the world’ continues the world.
II. We have Pilate, indifferent and perplexed.
Luke’s very brief account should be supplemented by John’s, which shows us how important the conversation, so much abbreviated by Luke, was. Of course Pilate knew the priests and rulers too well to believe for a moment that the reason they gave for bringing Jesus to him was the real one, and his taking Jesus apart to speak with Him shows a wish to get at the bottom of the case. So far he was doing his duty, but then come the faults. These may easily be exaggerated, and we should remember that Pilate was the most ignorant, and therefore the least guilty, of all the persons mentioned in this passage. He had probably never heard the name of Jesus till that day, and saw nothing but an ordinary Jewish peasant, whom his countrymen, like the incomprehensible and troublesome people they were, wished, for some fantastic reason, to get killed.
But that dialogue with his Prisoner should have sunk deeper into his mind and heart. He was in long and close enough contact with Jesus to have seen glimpses of the light, which, if followed, would have led to clear recognition. His first sin was indifference, not unmingled with scorn, and it blinded him. Christ’s lofty and wonderful explanation of the nature of His kingdom and His mission to bear witness to the truth fell on entirely preoccupied ears, which were quick enough to catch the faintest whispers of treason, but dull towards ‘truth.’ When Jesus tried to reach his conscience by telling him that every lover of truth would listen to His voice, he only answered by the question, to which he waited not for an answer, ‘What is truth?’
That was not the question of a theoretical sceptic, but simply of a man who prided himself on being ‘practical,’ and left all talk about such abstractions to dreamers. The limitations of the Roman intellect and its characteristic over-estimate of deeds and contempt for pure thought, as well as the spirit of the governor, who would let men think what they chose, as long as they did not rebel, spoke in the question. Pilate is an instance of a man blinded to all lofty truth and to the beauty and solemn significance of Christ’s words, by his absorption in outward life. He thinks of Jesus as a harmless fanatic. Little did he know that the truth, which he thought moonshine, would shatter the Empire, which he thought the one solid reality. So called practical men commit the same mistake in every generation. ‘All flesh is as grass;. . . the word of the Lord endureth for ever.’
Further, Pilate sinned in prostituting his office by not setting free the prisoner when he was convinced of His innocence. ‘I find no fault in this man,’ should have been followed by immediate release. Every moment afterwards, in which He was kept captive, was the condemnation of the unjust judge. He was clearly anxious to keep his troublesome subjects in good humour, and thought that the judicial murder of one Jew was a small price to pay for popularity. Still he would have been glad to have escaped from what his official training had taught him to recoil from, and what some faint impression, made by his patient prisoner, gave him a strange dread of. So he grasps at the mention of Galilee, and tries to gain two good ends at once by handing Jesus over to Herod.
The relations between Antipas and him were necessarily delicate, like those between the English officials and the rajahs of native states in India; and there had been some friction, perhaps about ‘the Galileans, whose blood’ he ‘had mingled with their sacrifices.’ If there had been difficulties in connection with such a question of jurisdiction, the despatch of Jesus to Herod would be a graceful way of making the amende honorable, and would also shift an unpleasant decision on to Herod’s shoulders. Pilate would not be displeased to get rid of embarrassment, and to let Herod be the tool of the priests’ hate.
How awful the thought is of the contrast between Pilate’s conceptions of what he was doing and the reality! How blind to Christ’s beauty it is possible to be, when engrossed with selfish aims and outward things! How near a soul may be to the light, and yet turn away from it and plunge into darkness! How patient that silent prisoner, who lets Himself be bandied about from one tyrant to another, not because they had power, but because He loved the world, and would bear the sins of every one of us! How terrible the change when these unjust judges and He will change places, and Pilate and Herod stand at His judgment-seat!
III. We have the wretched, frivolous Herod.
This is the murderer of John Baptist-’that fox,’ a debauchee, a coward, and as cruel as sensuous. He had all the vices of his worthless race, and none of the energy of its founder. He is by far the most contemptible of the figures in this passage. Note his notion of, and his feeling to, Jesus. He thought of our Lord as of a magician or juggler, who might do some wonders to amuse the vacuous ennui of his sated nature. Time was when he had felt some twinge of conscience in listening to the Baptist, and had almost been lifted to nobleness by that strong arm. Time was, too, when he had trembled at hearing of Jesus, and taken Him for his victim risen from a bloody grave. But all that is past now. The sure way to stifle conscience is to neglect it. Do that long and resolutely enough, and it will cease to utter unheeded warnings. There will be a silence which may look like peace, but is really death. Herod’s gladness was more awful and really sad than Herod’s fear. Better to tremble at God’s word than to treat it as an occasion for mirth. He who hates a prophet because he knows him to be a prophet and himself to be a sinner, is not so hopeless as he who only expects to get sport out of the messenger of God.
Then note the Lord’s silence. Herod plies Jesus with a battery of questions, and gets no answer. If there had been a grain of earnestness in them all, Christ would have spoken. He never is silent to a true seeker after truth. But it is fitting that frivolous curiosity should be unanswered, and there is small likelihood of truth being found at the goal when there is nothing more noble than that temper at the starting-point. Christ’s silence is the penalty of previous neglect of Christ’s and His forerunner’s words. Jesus guides His conduct by His own precept, ‘Give not that which is holy unto the dogs’; and He knows, as we never can, who come into that terrible list of men to whom it would only add condemnation to speak of even His love. The eager hatred of the priests followed Jesus to Herod’s palace, but no judicial action is recorded as taking place there. Their fierce earnestness of hate seems out of place in the frivolous atmosphere. The mockery, in which Herod is not too dignified to join his soldiers, is more in keeping. But how ghastly it sounds to us, knowing whom they ignorantly mocked! Cruelty, inane laughter, hideous pleasure in an innocent man’s pain, disregard of law and justice-all these they were guilty of; and Herod, at any rate, knew enough of Jesus to give a yet darker colouring to his share in the coarse jest.
But how the loud laugh would have fallen silent if some flash had told who Jesus was! Is there any of our mirth, perhaps at some of His servants, or at some phase of His gospel, which would in like manner stick in our throats if His judgment throne blazed above us? Ridicule is a dangerous weapon. It does more harm to those who use it than to those against whom it is directed. Herod thought it an exquisite jest to dress up his prisoner as a king; but Herod has found out, by this time, whether he or the Nazarene was the sham monarch, and who is the real one. Christ was as silent under mockery as to His questioner. He bears all, and He takes account of all. He bears it because He is the world’s Sacrifice and Saviour. He takes account of it, and will one day recompense it, because He is the world’s King, and will be its Judge. Where shall we stand then-among the silenced mockers, or among the happy trusters in His Passion and subjects of His dominion?
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Trial Before Pilate and Herod. The Crucifixion and Burial
Trial Before Pilate and Herod. The Crucifixion and Burial
1-5. The trial before Pilate begins (Mat_27:1-2, Mat_27:11-14; Mar_15:1-5; Joh_18:28-38). See on Mt and Jn.
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6-12. Trial before Herod (peculiar to Lk). 'By sending Jesus to Herod the clever Roman gained two ends at once. First, he got rid of the business which was imposed on him, and then he took the first step towards a reconciliation with Herod (Luk_23:12). The cause of their quarrel had probably been some conflict of jurisdiction. In that case, was not the best means of soldering up the quarrel to concede to him a right of jurisdiction within the very city of Jerusalem?'(Godet).
7. Herod's jurisdiction] This extended over Galilee and Peræa.
Was at Jerusalem] i.e. in order to keep the Passover.
13-25. Trial before Pilate resumed. Jesus is condemned (Mat_27:15-26; Mar_15:6-20; Joh_18:38 to Joh_19:16). See on Mt and Jn.
26-32. The procession to the Cross (Mat_27:32; Mar_15:21-22; Joh_19:17). See on Mt. The beautiful address to the women of Jerusalem is peculiar to Lk. These women are not the same as the Galilean sympathisers (Luk_8:1-3), but residents in Jerusalem. The warm feeling with which all classes of women regarded Jesus is especially marked in this 'the Gospel of womanhood.'
28. Weep not for me] You are not wrong in weeping for Me, nevertheless something is about to befall, for which you will weep with far greater reason, the destruction of your city and the overthrow of your nation.
30. Cp. Isa_2:19; Rev_6:16.
31. If they do these things, etc.] i.e. 'If the Romans so cruelly treat Me whom they know to be innocent, how much more severely will they treat your children whom they will regard as rebellious and guilty?' Or, 'If the inhabitants of Jerusalem are so guilty now in slaying Me, to what further stages of wickedness will they afterwards advance?'
33-49. Crucifixion and Death of Jesus (Mat_27:33-56; Mar_15:23-41; Joh_19:18-37). See on Mt and Jn. Peculiar to Lk are three of the Seven Words from the Cross, and the incident of the Converted Thief.
34. Father, forgive them, etc.] (peculiar to Lk). This, the first Word from the Cross, is omitted by a few early authorities, but is unquestionably authentic. Jesus here puts into practice His own teaching about loving enemies and forgiving them.
39. One of the malefactors] At first both malefactors reviled Jesus (Mat_27:47), then one of them, moved by the gentleness and majesty of the Sufferer, was ashamed, and rebuked his fellow. From shame he passed to penitence and faith.
42. Lord, remember me, etc.] RV 'Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom.' The thief here acknowledges Jesus to be the Messiah, a stupendous act of faith under the circumstances. 'He was rejected by the Jews who saw Him raising the dead. He was not rejected by the thief who saw Him hanging with him on the Cross '(St. Augustine). The thief apparently expected Christ to rise again and establish His kingdom.
43. To-day, etc.] (peculiar to Lk). 'The grace granted is more abundant than the prayer. For his prayer was that the Lord would be mindful of him when He should have come into His kingdom. But the Lord said unto him, “Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise” Where Christ is there is life, there is the Kingdom '(St. Ambrose). On 'Paradise' see Luk_16:22, Luk_16:23. This incident teaches us not to despise even deathbed repentances.
44. In the RV the darkness is said to be due to 'the sun's light failing.'
46. Father, etc.] (peculiar to Lk). This 'word' is a quotation from Psa_31:5. Spirit] i.e. Christ's human spirit. 'Spirit' and 'soul' are identical in the Gospels. Christ is said to have both (Mat_26:33; Mat_27:50; Joh_12:27; Joh_13:21; Joh_19:30).
50-56. The burial (Mat_27:57-61; Mar_15:42-47; Joh_19:38-42). See on Mt, Mk and Jn.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 6 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CXXVIII. Third Stage…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CXXVIII. Third Stage of Jewish Trial].
CXXVIII. THIRD STAGE OF JEWISH TRIAL. JESUS FORMALLY CONDEMNED BY THE SANHEDRIN AND LED TO PILATE. (Jerusalem. Friday after dawn.) aMATT. XXVII. 1, 2; bMARK XV. 1; cLUKE XXII. 66-23:1; dJOHN XVIII. 28.
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a1 Now when morning was come, c66 And as soon as it was day, bstraightway cthe assembly of the [702] elders of the people was gathered together, both chief priests and scribes; and they led him away into their council, aall the chief priests and bwith the elders aof the people band scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation, and atook counsel against Jesus to put him to death [Since blasphemy was by no means a criminal offense among the Romans, the Sanhedrin consulted together and sought for some charge of which the Romans would take notice. As we follow their course it will become evident to us that they found no new ground of accusation against Jesus, and, failing to do so, they decided to make use of our Lord's claim to be the Christ by so perverting it as to make him seem to assert an intention to rebel against the authority of Rome]: csaying, 67 If thou art the Christ, tell us. But he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe [as experience had already proven-- Joh_8:59, Joh_10:31]: 68 and if I ask i you, ye will not answer. [Thus Jesus protests against the violence and injustice of his trial. His judges were asking him whether he was the Christ without any intention of investigating the truth of his claim, but merely for the purpose of condemning him by unwarrantedly assuming that he was not the Christ. They therefore asked in an unlawful spirit as well as in an unlawful manner. Jesus had a good right to ask them questions tending to confirm his Christhood by the Scripture, but had he done so they would not have answered-- Mat_22:41-45. Jesus appeals to them to try the question as to who he was, but they insist on confining the inquiry as to who he claimed to be, assuming that the claim was false.] 69 But from henceforth shall the Son of man be seated at the right hand of the power of God. [See p. 698.] 70 And they all said, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am. [The Hebrew mode of expression, equivalent to "Ye say it, because I am."] 71 And they said, What further need have we of witness? for we ourselves have heard from his own mouth. [Thus they unconsciously admit their lack of evidence against Jesus.] [703] 1 And the whole company of them rose up, a2 and they bound bJesus, and carried aled him away, d28 They lead Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium: cand brought him before Pilate. band delivered him up to Pilate. athe governor. dand it was early; [The Sanhedrin could try and could condemn, but could not put to death without the concurring sentence of the Roman governor. To obtain this sentence, they now lead Jesus before Pilate in the early dawn, having made good use of their time.]
[FFG 702-704]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v7 See margin ref., (See Scofield "Mat 14:1"). Also Luk…
Herod
See margin ref., (See Scofield "Mat 14:1"). Also Luk 23:8; Luk 23:11; Luk 23:12; Luk 23:15; Luk 3:1
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The son of man before Pilate and Herod.…
CHAPTER 23
1. The son of man before Pilate and Herod. (Luk 23:1-12)
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2. Pilate Yields to the People’s Will; Barabbas Freed and the Son of man Condemned. (Luk 23:13-26)
3. The Crucifixion of the Son Of Man. (Luk 23:27-38)
4. The Penitent Thief. (Luk 23:39-43)
5. The Death of the Son of Man. (Luk 23:44-46)
6. The Testimony of the Centurion. (Luk 23:47-49)
7. The Burial. (Luk 23:50-56.)
Luk 23:1-12
Before Pilate the Son of Man is accused as a perverter of the nation and as an enemy of the Roman government. They had attempted to ensnare Him with the question of the tribute money and failed so miserably in it. Their motive stands now uncovered. Pilate asks Him concerning His Kingship, which the Lord answered affirmatively. Thus He witnessed to two facts, His Sonship and His Kingship. Luke tells us what Matthew and Mark omit, that Pilate sent Him to Herod. The silence of the Son of Man standing before that wicked king is very solemn. Then He is mocked by Herod and his soldiers. Herod and Pilate became united in rejecting Christ. See how this fact is used in the first prayer meeting after the church had been formed. Act 4:23-30.
Luk 23:13-38
The weakling Pilate is helpless. Their voices prevail. “Away with this man!”; “Release unto us Barabbas!”--”Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” These are the cries now heard. Pilate then gave the awful sentence, that it should be done to Him as they required. The lamenting women and the Lord’s answer is peculiar to Luke. “Weep not for me!” Blessed words of His great love. He looked for no sympathy from man. Frail women were moved to pity. He is the green tree; they were the dry wood. The people’s wrath fanned by Satan’s power was spending itself upon Him, the green and fruitful tree. How awful it would be when the dry wood, the unsaved masses, would be exposed to the fires of wrath and persecution. Forty years later the “dry wood” burned fiercely in the siege of Jerusalem. When they reach the place called “Calvary” (the skull: Luke only gives the name “Calvary” because it is the Gentile Gospel), the Latin, Gentile name for Golgotha,* they crucified Him. Luke omits much which is more fully given in the other Synoptics; we read nothing of the cry of the forsaken One. But Luke tells us of the blessed prayer which Matthew and Mark omit, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” And His last word, “Father, into Thy hands I commit My Spirit,” is also given exclusively by Luke. All this is in blessed keeping with the character of this Gospel.
Luk 23:39-56
The story of the dying thief and his salvation is also characteristic to Luke. The great lesson of the three crosses is so familiar that it needs no lengthy annotations. The two classes, the saved and the unsaved, are represented by the two thieves. He, the Lamb of God paying the penalty of sinners, is in the midst. The way the penitent was saved is the only way in which man can be saved. He could do no good works; he could not get baptized or perform anything else. All he could do was to cast himself in faith as a lost sinner upon the Lord. Nor was his salvation a life-long, progressive work (as some teach on salvation); it was instantaneous. Nor was there any “purgatory” for him. He expected to be remembered in the Kingdom to come. Instead of that he hears, “Verily I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise.” The attempt by soul-sleepers, restorationists and others to put the comma after “today” is a deceptive invention to bring the Word of God into line with their evil doctrines.
“This short prayer contained a very large and long creed, the articles whereof are these.
1. He believed that the soul died not with the body of man;--
2. That there is a world to come for rewarding the pious and penitent, and for punishing the impious and impenitent;--
3. That Christ, though now under crucifying and killing tortures, yet had right to a kingdom;--
4. That this kingdom was in a better world than the present evil world;--
5. That Christ would not keep this kingdom all to himself;--
6. That He would bestow a part and portion hereof on those that are truly penitent;--
7. That the key of this kingdom did hang at Christ’s girdle, though He now hung dying on the cross;--
8. That he does roll his whole soul for eternal salvation upon a dying Saviour” (Ness).
Then the Son of Man cried with a loud voice ere He dismissed His spirit and the Centurion, in keeping with this Gospel, bears witness, that He was a righteous Man.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 6 The Trial before Pilate.
The Trial before Pilate.
The accusation:
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v. 1. And the whole multitude of them arose, and led Him unto Pilate.
v. 2. And they began to accuse Him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that He Himself is Christ, a king.
v. 3. And Pilate asked Him, saying, Art Thou the king of the Jews? And He answered him and said, Thou sayest it.
v. 4. Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this Man.
v. 5. And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.
The whole multitude of them arose; though it was so early in the morning, the members of the Sanhedrin had appeared practically in a body, most of them being pleased to a point where they could not have rested quietly. "At the morning meeting of the Sanhedrin it had doubtless been resolved to put the confession of Jesus that He was the Christ into a shape fit to be laid before Pilate, that is, to give it a political character, and charge Him with aspiring to be king. " Now they led Him to Pilate. Down through the courts of the Temple they took Him, out through one of the southern or western gates and to the other side of the Tyropeon Valley, where, according to the opinion of modern investigators, the Praetorium of Pilate was situated. And no sooner did Pilate appeal before them on the elevated pavement before the palace than they began to bring their accusations. By a skillful manipulation of the Lord’s confession they attempted to put into it a political significance. They charged Him with perverting the nation, with stirring up the people to disaffection and rebellion, with doing His best to hinder them from paying tribute to Caesar, with saying that He was the Christ, a king. These charges were the foulest and basest slanders that could have been invented by them, telling in each case what the Jewish leaders had attempted to make Jesus do, what they had desired Him to do, in order that they might have reasons to bring Him before the procurator. The entire conduct of the Lord disproved the charges as malicious and unfounded accusations. Jesus had expressly taught and commanded that the constitutional taxes and obedience to a lawful prince must be paid; He had escaped when the people had planned to make Him a king, an earthly ruler. Pilate knew the accusations to be nothing but trumped-up charges, but now that he had Jesus before him, he determined to find out wherein His kingship consisted, what His kingdom really was. Upon the governor’s question whether He was the king of the Jews, Jesus gave an affirmative answer. And, as John relates, He made some attempt to explain the matter to the heathen, but without avail. However, a mere glance at the accused had convinced Pilate that this was not a rebel or seditionist, and that His kingship certainly offered no dangers to the existence of the Roman Empire. He therefore told the high priests and the crowds outside, since by this time the rabble had gathered from every part of the city, that he found no kind of fault in this man. But the Jewish leaders had, in the meantime, not been idle, but had been busily engaged in stirring up the mob to lust for blood. In the face of the governor’s finding, therefore, the chief priests kept insisting and contending most bitterly that they were right, that Jesus had stirred up the people to sedition, exciting them with His teaching, that He had done so in the entire country of Judea, having begun in Galilee and continued His rebellious work, spread His mischievous doctrine over the whole province even to this holy city. The chief priests were determined to have their will carried into execution at any cost, by fair means or foul, and one misrepresentation more or less did not seriously burden their consciences.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 6 General Information:
General Information:
Jesus is brought before Pilate.
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The whole company of them
"All of the Jewish leaders" or "All the members of the Council"
rose up
"stood" or "stood to their feet"
before Pilate
To appear before someone means to enter into their authority. AT: "to be judged by Pilate" (See: Metaphor)
We found
"We" refers only the Council members, and not to Pilate of any other people nearby. (See: Exclusive and Inclusive "We")
perverting our nation
"causing our people to do things that are not right" or "causing trouble by telling lies to our people"
forbidding to give tribute
"telling them not to pay taxes"
to Caesar
Caesar represents the Emperor of Rome. AT: "to the Emperor" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Jesus
Pilate
accuse
perverse
Israel
tribute
Caesar
Christ
king
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–6 23:1 The council did not have the right to…
23:1 The council did not have the right to administer capital punishment (John 18:31), so they had to take Jesus before the Roman governor, who was in Jerusalem to maintain order during the potentially turbulent Passover festival.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.