The Adventure Link
CSI: Jerusalem
Pilate in the Picture
Immediately after the early-morning hearing in which the Sanhedrin reaffirmed their death sentence against Jesus, they bound Him and marched Him off to the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate (Matthew 27:2).
All criminal penalties in Judea were subject to Pilate’s ultimate approval or veto (either directly or through courts that operated under his oversight). The Sanhedrin constituted a religious court, not a civil one. Their jurisdiction covered matters directly pertaining to the Jewish religion. They had no authority to put anyone to death without prior Roman approval even in cases where Old Testament law prescribed death. That meant many Old Testament moral and religious standards could not be enforced with biblical penalties. The Romans rarely approved the death penalty in cases of adultery, homosexuality, blasphemy, false prophecy—or other moral or religious transgressions.
That policy was widely resented as a Roman intrusion into the Jewish religion—and an affront to the law of God. It was one of the main points of constant friction between the Sanhedrin and the Roman government. Nonetheless, the members of the Sanhedrin on this occasion were eager to get Roman consent to Jesus’ death, because that would help legitimize what they were doing. Perhaps they somehow thought if they could dupe the Roman government into killing Jesus, His blood would not be on their hands.
They originally found Pilate unwilling to add his imprimatur to their conspiracy, but in the end Pilate decided it was politically expedient for him to kill Jesus. Pilate’s political ambitions thus took precedence over whatever moral convictions he might have had, and he was the one who finally signed the death warrant to murder Jesus.
Within eighteen hours after His arrest, Jesus was subjected to two trials, each with three phases. In His trial before the Sanhedrin, there had been three hearings—one before Annas, one before the Sanhedrin at night with Caiaphas presiding, and one in the early morning, where the formal verdict was finalized. The Roman trial would also have three phases, as Christ is first brought to Pilate; then sent to Herod; then brought before Pilate once more.
Pilate’s Jerusalem residence was known as the Praetorium. It was more than just his residence; it also housed the judgment hall from which he adjudicated all cases brought before him. Its location is disputed, but it was situated either next to Herod’s palace, or perhaps more likely, adjacent to the Antonia fortress, the nerve center of Roman military power in Jerusalem, directly north of the temple compound. Pilate’s permanent residence was actually in Caesarea, a town west of Jerusalem on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, but he came to Jerusalem during the Jewish feasts, and thus he was in town for the Passover.
It was still very early in the morning on Friday—probably before 5:00—when the Sanhedrin arrived at the Praetorium with Jesus in shackles. Pilate could not have known beforehand of their coming, and he probably had to be awakened to meet with them at such an hour.
John 18:28–29 sets the scene: “They led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. But they themselves did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. Pilate then went out to them”—probably addressing them from a portico or balcony of the mansion.
As we saw in chapter 2, a difference in how days were reckoned made it possible for Passover to be celebrated over a two-day period. Galilean Jews reckoned their days from sunrise to sunrise, and so their Passover fell on Thursday. That is why Jesus and the disciples had already eaten the Passover meal the preceding evening. But in Judea, where days were counted by the Sadducees’ method—from sundown to sundown—Passover was Friday. So the Passover meal would not be eaten by most Judean Jews until later that evening. The Sanhedrin therefore would not enter Pilate’s residence, because rabbinical tradition (not Scripture) taught that if they entered the home of a Gentile, they would be ceremonially defiled and unable to partake of the Passover feast. Therefore they insisted on meeting Pilate outside.
The melodrama of their refusing to enter the Praetorium actually worked in favor of the Sanhedrin’s purpose, which was the political intimidation of Pilate. They had deliberately come en masse (Luke 23:1) and at such an early hour on a feast day in order to lend a sense of the utmost urgency to their plea. Here was a case that clearly could not wait. The early-morning hour, the Sanhedrin’s insistence on dealing with this case before they celebrated their feast, and the ploy of bringing Pilate out to meet them on their own ground all worked to underscore in Pilate’s mind that this was an extremely volatile and urgent situation. The Sanhedrin no doubt hoped Pilate would simply do whatever they told him, because it was obviously advantageous for him to keep the ruling priests happy during the feast days, with so many Jewish pilgrims in town.
But Pilate was unwilling to be made their puppet so easily.
He would not approve their sentence against Jesus without first hearing formal charges. So he asked them, “What accusation do you bring against this Man?” (John 18:29).
Their reply was deliberately evasive. They had actually convicted Jesus on charges of blasphemy, but they knew such a charge alone would normally be insufficient to elicit Pilate’s approval for an execution. So “they answered and said to him, ‘If He were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him up to you’ ” (v. 30).
The arrogance of the reply is astonishing. The Sanhedrin was in effect demanding that Pilate take Jesus and execute Him without asking any questions about what He had been accused of or why He was condemned. They pretended Pilate was impugning their integrity by trying to investigate the charges against Jesus, but the fact is that Pilate’s question was one of the few proper legal procedures that was followed in all the hearings Jesus was subjected to. Pilate was refusing to hear Jesus’ case until he heard the indictment.
The Sanhedrin’s brash reply evidently had the desired effect on Pilate, however, because “Then Pilate said to them, ‘You take Him and judge Him according to your law’ ” (v. 31). In effect, he gave them approval to do with Jesus whatever their law demanded. In all likelihood, Pilate assumed they would eagerly accept his nod of approval and immediately take Jesus out and stone Him. He was in essence telling the Sanhedrin that if they wanted to put Jesus to death for His supposed crimes against Judaism, Rome would turn a blind eye to the deed this time. Pilate obviously had no desire to rile the Sanhedrin on this occasion.
But the Sanhedrin was not satisfied with Pilate’s approval to stone Jesus themselves. They wanted a Roman execution. This was their plan for a number of reasons. Like Pilate, they were fearful of the people’s opinions (Matthew 26:5). All along, the Sanhedrin had been eager to avoid responsibility for their actions, and stoning Him by their own hands would ultimately make it impossible for them to do so. Turning Jesus over to the Romans made their plot so much more tidy. Furthermore, according to a tradition similar to the one that forbade them to partake of the feast after entering a Gentile’s house, they would have been defiled if they had stoned Jesus before eating the Passover. And now that their plot against Him was moving ahead so quickly, they had apparently decided that they did not want to delay the execution until after Passover (Matthew 26:5). So they were determined to get Pilate to do the deed for them. Once they saw how easily intimidated he was, their determination only intensified.
So they told Pilate, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death” (John 18:31). They reminded Pilate of the very restriction they resented so much. In this case, they were determined to use it to their advantage, by intimidating Pilate further until he agreed to have Jesus put to death by Roman hands.
All of this, again, perfectly fulfilled the plan of God. By insisting on a Roman execution, the Sanhedrin was unwittingly ensuring “that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled which He spoke, signifying by what death He would die” (v. 32). Jesus had once told his disciples, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify” (Matthew 20:18–19). He had many times spoken of dying on a cross—a Roman instrument of execution. By handing Jesus over for execution to the Romans, the Sanhedrin brought about the fulfillment of Jesus’ own words.
But Pilate insisted on hearing an indictment against Jesus, so if the Sanhedrin wanted Pilate to execute Him, they now needed more substantial charges against Him. They would have to accuse Him of crimes that would stimulate a Roman’s appetite for justice more than the accusation of blasphemy would. Therefore they quickly fabricated new charges of sedition against Him. Luke writes, “They began to accuse Him, saying, ‘We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, saying that He Himself is Christ, a King’ ” (Luke 23:2). In other words, they portrayed Him to Pilate as an insurrectionist who had deliberately stirred the people against Roman taxation and made Himself out to be a king.
None of those things were true, of course—and Pilate clearly knew it (Matthew 27:18). If there had been any real basis for such charges, it would no doubt have come to Pilate’s attention first. Furthermore, Pilate knew that the Sanhedrin would not be the ones to try Him for crimes such as those. After all, opposition to Roman taxation was well known and widespread among the Jewish leaders themselves. They once attempted to entrap Jesus on the issue of paying taxes to Caesar, and He had replied with the famous statement that had caused them to marvel at His wisdom: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). So the charges against Him were lies. Jesus had never sought to establish a political kingdom in opposition to Rome, but quite the opposite (John 6:15).
How does this all come together in the murder of Jesus?
The adventure and investigation continues....
