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Pilates Moral Struggle
John 19:1-16
Today we are going to encounter a tremendous moral struggle, by the
governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate. His struggle begins when providence
brings him face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ. His encounter with
Christ is an encounter with truth and truth always demands a response.
We have talked in past weeks about how all of this came about. But this
morning I need us to stop and look at Pilate’s moral struggle and
hopefully give us strength in our struggles.
Today will be a little different as we are going to have to hop around
our passage as well as other Gospel accounts, so let’s read our text in
it’s entirety so we can get well grounded.
The Verdict of Pilate’s own Conscience is loud and clear.
Over and over we hear Pilate say concerning Jesus, “I find no fault in
this man.”
John 18:38 -I find no guilt in him.
John 19:4 I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no
guilt in him.”
John 19:6 Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in
him.”
Pilate knows that Jesus is innocent of the charges that have been
brought against him. He even knows why these religious leaders have
trumped up these charges against Jesus.
In Matthew’s gospel 27:18 we read “For he knew it was out of envy that
they had handed Jesus over to him.”
So Pilate cannot claim ignorance concerning Jesus. He has already
personally interrogated him several times. John records every one of the
7 Scenes:
John 18:28-32
John 18:33-38a
John 18:38b-40
John 19:1-3
John 19:4-7
John 19:8-11
John 19:12-16
And each interrogation further confirmed Jesus’ innocence.
Pilate’s conscience is also telling him that there is something very
unusual about Jesus. He has sat in judgment over hundreds of men. He
knows how people respond when facing with a death sentence. He expects
to see either a trembling soul pleading for mercy and begging for his
life or a hardened criminal trying to lie or bribe his way out of
trouble.
At one point he is so amazed by Jesus demeanor that he says to him in
John 19:10 “Do you refuse to speak to me?”
The question could also be asked “Jesus, you might keep silent before
anyone else in this trial. But I am the one who can either let you go or
have you crucified.”
Every answer Jesus gave Pilate brought more and more truth to bear on
his conscience. Jesus answered those questions by talking about the real
source of authority, which is God not Caesar. Jesus had talked to Pilate
about the nature of His kingdom—a kingdom not from this world but from
heaven above. He had talked with him about two kinds of people—those on
the side of truth and those in opposition to truth. Pilate progressively
realizes that there is something highly unusual about Jesus.
In John 19:7 the Jews finally tell Pilate the real reason they want
Jesus put to death. Up to that time they had tried to frame their
accusations in a way that would win Pilate’s agreement with them against
Jesus.
But in the heat of the moment the truth spills out. “We have a law and
according to our law he must die” now here comes the zinger “because he
claimed to be the Son of God.”
The law they are referring to is found in Leviticus 24:16 Whoever
blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the
congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when
he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.
Now while Pilate was not a Jew, and he did not embrace their religious
beliefs. But He was a roman and the Romans had their own God’s. It would
have been very common for Pilate to worship in the temple of Hercules
and Zeus And in the Roman culture there were stories of how the Gods
came and walked among the people. So in Pilate’s mind maybe this Jesus
really is a supernatural being. His demeanor certainly indicates
something very unusual.
In John 19:8 we read “When Pilate heard this, he was even more
afraid...”
In addition to all of this God gave Pilate’s wife a dream. We do not
know exactly what she saw in the dream. But we do know that God sent it
as a warning to Pilate and his wife.
Matthew 27:19 “While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife
sent him this message: "Don’t have anything to do with that innocent
man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him."
There is Pilate struggling with his own conscience. Everything within
him is saying that Jesus is innocent. There is obviously something
unusual about Jesus that may very well be supernatural. Then comes this
message from his wife, “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent
man...” Pilate knows what is right. He has the authority by his own
confession (19:10) to do the right thing. But here is his problem.
The Voice of the Crowd is in conflict with his conscience and he wants
to please the crowd.
Pilate has a lot to lose here. He is in a position of power and
advantage. He is respected. His wife enjoys their palace. He makes good
money and has a great future. The problem is if he follows his
conscience he may lose all of that. He has already been reprimanded by
Rome for mishandling previous events.
Philo tells us that on another occasion Pilate dedicated some shields in
the palace of Herod in honor of the emperor. On these shields there was
no representation of any forbidden thing, but simply an inscription of
the name of the donor and of him in whose honor they were set up. But
this upset the Jews and they petitioned him to have them removed; when
he refused, they appealed to Tiberius, who sent an order that they
should be removed.
So they have already gone over his head once and taken some of his
authority away. He does not need to have more complaints sent in from
the local authorities. Yes, he is in charge. But Caesar’s approach to
government is to pacify the locals as much as possible and keep
collecting their taxes. If he can’t handle that they will find someone
who can.
Think about in terms of our situation in Iraq especially before
sovereignty was handed over to the new Iraqi government. We have the
military might and the authority to control the region. But if we are
insensitive to the religious customs of the people we could find
ourselves facing an impossible situation. We want leaders there who take
charge but do not needlessly alienate people. And that was also what
Rome wanted.
The Jewish leaders know Pilate’s vulnerability and play it to the hilt.
In verse 12, when Pilate tried to set Jesus free the Jews kept shouting,
“If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar.”
That hit Pilate’s struggle dead center. The right thing to do was to set
Jesus free. But, was he willing to pay the price to do the right thing?
Pilate did what we are often tempted to do in a situation like this. He
tried to avoid the decision as much as he could.
1st When the Jews brought Jesus to him he tried to hand him back to
them.
John 18:31 “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law?”
That didn’t work because they were insisting on the death penalty, which
the Jews could not execute without Roman approval. The Jewish leaders
forced Pilate’s hand by saying that Jesus had claimed to be a king. A
Roman governor could not ignore that kind of claim. If he ignored it and
Jesus did lead a rebellion he would be accountable for not dealing with
it.
Pilate’s second attempt to avoid a decision happened when he heard that
Jesus was from Galilee.
In Luke 23:7 we learn that Galilee was under Herod’s jurisdictions so
Pilate sent Jesus to Herod, who was in Jerusalem at the time. Luke tells
us that Herod was glad to see Jesus because he wanted Jesus to work a
miracle for him—put on a show. But instead Jesus wouldn’t even answer
Herod’s questions. Herod’s soldiers abused and mocked Jesus and sent him
back to Pilate.
Pilate then had a stroke of genius. He remembered a custom observed
during the Passover in which the Roman governor would let the people
choose one prisoner to be released.
Pilate saw this as a solution to his problem. He would narrow the choice
between Jesus and a scoundrel named Barabbas. Barabbas was such a low
life he was sure they would not choose him. But he Jewish leaders were
determined to have Jesus killed and they led the crowd in asking for
Barabbas instead of Jesus. Pilate’s moral dilemma just would not go
away.
I’m sure Pilate did not want to do this but he figured it was better
than putting Jesus to death.
He ordered his soldiers to flog Jesus, and we discussed this two weeks
ago. But I want to remind you that the scourging that Jesus endured was
under the Roman’s authority and not the Jewish rule. So there was no
limit to the number of strikes that He could receive or how brutal the
scourging could be. The scourging was called the “Little Death” and the
Romans only requirement was that the criminal not be beat to death, but
he was to be beat so bad that he would not linger long on the cross.
John tells us that the soldiers mocked Jesus and repeatedly slapped him
on the face with their hands. They put a purple robe on him to ridicule
him as king and a crown of thorns on his head.
In that pitiful condition Pilate brought Jesus before the crowd
confident that they would be satisfied with the punishment and consent
to Jesus’ release.
Some scholars believe that was done because by displaying Jesus in such
a state of humiliation, Pilate was making it clear that there was no
possibility of that Jesus was the leader of a guerilla band as accused.
But that didn’t work either. They continued to demand that Jesus be
crucified.
During this whole ordeal Pilate tries over and over again to reason with
the mob and get them to let Jesus go. But every effort put the decision
right back in his lap. Would he or would he not authorize the
crucifixion of Jesus?
The wavering of Pilate’s Will culminates in the wrong decision.
John 19:16 “Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.”
In addition to trying to avoid making the decision he ultimately had to
make, Pilate also did a couple of things to try to appease his
conscience.
During the latter stages of this process he took a bowl of water and
washed his hands before the crowd and said to them “I am innocent of
this man’s blood, it is your responsibility.” Matthew records this in
Matthew 27:24.
You may remember the chilling answer the crowd gave to that statement.
Matt 27:25 “All the people answered, ‘Let his blood be on us and on our
children!’”
By washing his hands before the crowd he was sending a message to the
Jewish crowd. In fact, the ritual was not a Roman ceremony but a Jewish
one. According to Deuteronomy 21:6-9 this is what the elders were to do
in the case of an unsolved murder. They were to publicly declaring their
innocence in that way.
But the ritual itself was not the whole story. The ritual was an outward
declaration of what was already true. They were innocent and this was
their statement of that fact. But Pilate was not innocent of the blood
of Jesus. He not only flogged an innocent man but he authorized his
crucifixion. The ritual alone would not change that fact.
In the same way today people try to use water sacraments the way Pilate
did. People who have never surrendered their lives to Christ go through
the motions of baptism thinking that ceremony will by itself give them a
right standing before God. But that is not what the Bible teaches.
Peter writes in 1 Peter 3:21 that Baptism saves you as an appeal to God
for a good or clean conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Water baptism is necessary for Salvation and an outward sign of an
inward pledge, but just doing a ritual without the spiritual reality is
not sufficient. Even though Pilate’s ritual came from the Bible it did
not remove his guilt.
Pilate did one other thing to appease his conscience that we will look
at further next week. He had a sign fastened to Jesus’ cross, which
said, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
John 19:21-22 tells us that when the chief priests complained about the
sign and wanted it changed to simply say that Jesus claimed to be King
of the Jews, Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
Where did Pilate’s Moral Dilemma leave him?
We do not know what eventually happened to Pilate. All kinds of
traditions and legends exist. The Coptic Church is said to observe June
25 as a day of honoring Pilate as a saint and martyr.
The Greek Church honors Pilate’s wife as a saint.
Eusebius’ says that Pilate was banished to the city of Vienne in modern
France where he eventually committed suicide.
Josephus has written that Pilate eventually lost the position he tried
so desperately to retain at the trial of Jesus. In 36 AD Pilate was
called to Rome to answer complaints brought against and his governorship
ended.
What did Pilate’s compromise buy him? A few short years of luxury and
then he lost it all anyway. What will a man give in exchange for his
soul? What mistakes did Pilate make?
He valued the wrong things.
He valued temporal comfort and power over heaven and eternity. When we
are called to make a tough decision are we looking for the way that God
would answer the dilemma or the way that would further our bank account?
Do you fudge on your taxes? Do you tell little white lies so that you
can get ahead?
Where you place your value in this life is answered by how you live your
life.
He feared the wrong things.
Pilate knew that his past behavior would not hold up under scrutiny by
Rome. He was intimidated by the Jewish leaders threat to accuse him of
disloyalty to Caesar.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Although Pilate had a
conscience and a certain fear of doing wrong, his fear of man was
stronger than his fear of God.
In Matthew 10:28 Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the
body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can
destroy both soul and body in hell.”
He failed to heed God’s warning.
God mercifully sent a dream to Pilate’s wife. Guys, if God speaks to you
through your wife then you need to listen to her.
Well Ladies, I figured that I would have gotten an amen for that
statement. But ladies the same is true for you. If God is trying to talk
to you through your husband you need to heed the warnings.
Pilate was not turned by a supernatural warning even though it had come
through someone he could trust.
He failed to take a firm stand for what he knew was right.
He was torn between two directions. On the one hand, he wanted to do the
right thing. But more than that he was unwilling to risk his personal
desires to do it.
This is the truth we must learn from Pilate’s error. A little compromise
leads to more compromise. A halfhearted stand for what is right will
usually crumble under the pressures of temptation. Make a firm decision
to do the right thing and then do not play with the alternatives.
Do not try some slick compromise like Pilate did when he offered the
choice between Barabbas and Jesus or when he flogged Jesus.
Do not avoid the decision. Make the decision to do what’s right and
trust God with the outcome.
When you are faced with any kind of moral struggle? Ask God to give you
the courage to do the right thing. Listen to His voice. Allow Him to
address your conscience with truth. Hear the warnings and counsel he may
give from his word or even through dreams and visions. And decide right
here and right now that there will be no compromise, there will be no
wavering, there will simple be the commitment to do the right thing and
let God take care of the rest.
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