The Gospel of John 19:1-15

John 19, 1-15. Let's first step through the slides that we have on this here. The night in which the Lord was betrayed began after the Last Supper. Actually, Judas went out during that time to betray. And one of the reasons why the disciples may not have even thought that that was unusual was it was actually allowed to go out and purchase more materials during the middle of the Passover. That was allowed under the rabbi's rules. And so they may have thought that since Judas is the treasurer, that he was going out to get some more things.

It is the day of Jesus' crucifixion and burial, and what we're looking at here is shortly before the crucifixion. The crucifixion took place at 9 a.m., and so this was early in the morning. Probably, if we were to put a time frame on it, Jesus went to Caiaphas' house probably about 3 a.m. 5 a.m. was when they were done at Caiaphas' house, and he'd be transferred over to Pilate.

Here's Fortress Antonia, which is often on the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. That was a Roman fortress. It had towers where the Romans could look out from the towers and look down upon the temple courtyard. It used to be thought that the trial before Pilate took place at that Fortress Antonia.

More recent archaeological excavations have concluded it's And the proposals are, excuse me, the Hasmonean Palace, and another proposal is Herod's Palace here. There's a particular scholar, Leyen Rittmeier, and that's a Dutch name, Leyen Rittmeier, who's, I would say, the world's foremost scholar about the Temple Mount in the vicinity, believes it's this Hasmonean Palace that we have marked out here. So, let's see, here's one of Leyen Rittmeier's drawings. And what you see here is the temple, here is the temple courtyard, and off to the corner here is the corner with the Antonia Fortress. And then this would have been the back side of the temple. And then over here is the Hasmonean Palace here.

And then in this area here, which is a quarry, where they would get a lot of the rock materials for a lot of these buildings. This was a quarry and Golgotha would be a hill in the middle of the quarry because the rock was not of high enough quality. So that would leave this mound in the middle of the quarry and off to the side here was where they had dug some of the various tombs. And that may well have been the location of Jesus tomb.

So anyway, that's Leon Rittmeier's work. Pontius Pilate, who obviously plays a central figure in the last part of Jesus' trials, he ruled from 26 to 36 AD and then basically disappeared off the face of Roman rule. He didn't do so well. And ordinarily lived in Caesarea, which is along the coast here. but traveled to and stayed in Jerusalem for special seasons and events, including the Passover, because that was the beginning of the Mosaic feasts, and you would get a swelling of population and a lot of Jewish fervor, and so they wanted to make sure things stayed calm, which also influenced why Pilate did what he did, as things were getting out of hand, and we'll talk about that in a minute here. So he would take more soldiers with him. They would have the soldiers stationed there at Antonia Fortress, but during these times when they would have lots of Jews coming in to Jerusalem for events like the Passover, then he would bring in more soldiers with him from Caesarea. Caesarea was actually a major Roman military installation that included coastal facilities. It had been built under Herod the Great.

Here is a pilot coin. So these are coins issued under pilots. Since he ruled from 26 to 36 AD, these are kind of in the middle or first half of his rule. Accessoria. Interestingly enough, this was roughly 50 years ago. Some Italian archaeologists were working at the amphitheater, and as they were kind of cleaning things up and looking at things, one of the stones that had been chipped up and turned around, as they pulled it out, it had the pilot's name on it.

And so what you see, you see the last part of Pontius and now the U's are V's, right? Which is why we call our W a W and it really looks more like a double V. So that's the last part of Pontius and then Pilatus. So let me get a little closer to that, this part here. So this U.S. or V.S. would be the last part of it and the rest of it's chipped off.

And then Pilatus is in here. Now, this is an artist's depiction of Pontius Pilate offering up, as we'll see at the end of this passage here, shall I crucify your king? Making that kind of an offer. Here's another shot of him doing so, but with a dramatic presentation. Another artistic rendering of Pilate considering the claims against Jesus, which really were rather empty. And then Pilate, as we'll see in this passage, did turn Jesus over to be flogged. And so it would look something like you see in this artistic depiction.

And this was their phlegm. is what it's called, that they would use for a flogging. And with that phlegm, they would beat hard. But while that oftentimes went along with crucifixion, it also was used in interrogations, as we'll see in our handout, in acts. Just as a standard interrogation technique, you'd get flogged. And so they began to do that to Paul.

And he said, you know, do you, you know, do this to Roman citizens? And that had them immediately back off and frightened because you could get a soldier could get capital punishment for beating a Roman citizen. So that they backed off. Jesus was not a Roman citizen. In fact, it was rare for Jews to be Roman citizens.

That was very unusual. Okay, so with that, let's get to the handout here. We're in John 19, 1 through 15. We point out last Sunday, if we take all the Gospels together, we actually get seven trials or seven segments of the trial of Jesus from the time of His arrest until the time when Pilate finally brings Jesus before the crowd. And we bolded those that are in the Gospel of John, but also listed those that are in the other three Gospels. And so what we'll be looking at here today will be Trial 6, what you see there in John 19, and then almost all of trial 7 are included in John 19, 1 through 15. The other Gospels include other details here and there, but we'll be looking at mostly trial 6 and 7 here.

So here's Pontius Pilate, and I have the Latin there, Pontius Pilatus, ruled as governor, and you may have wondered, you know, there's words like praetorian guard, Or as you've seen in here, and I think Macy again, Pilate was in the praetorium. The governor was called a praetor.

That's the reason for those names to derive there. So, and then you have the map that we showed here. Some have suggested that Herod's Palace, which is marked on here, but in much smaller print off to the left middle part, is the place where this trial took place. Leon Rittmeier, who's a scholar I would regard highly, thinks it's a Hasmonean palace, and so I would tend to go with him. He has gone through and made drawings of things as they were looking at all the archaeological and historical records. So I think his judgment is one that I would look to here. Let's look at the top of page two. And I make note in print here about what I just mentioned about Lane Ripmeyer. So we'll go to the second paragraph. The Jews wanted Jesus crucified because in John 1150 Caiaphas said, it is expedient for you that one man die for the people. That was the plan and this is what Caiaphas had said and that was the initiation of the plot to kill Jesus, right?

Pilate had not found any guilt in Jesus and he said so to the Jews who brought him to the Praetorium. They wouldn't go inside the Praetorium. Why? It's a Gentile's house, right? And here it was in the middle of the Passover. They would be excluded from the Passover. So what had to happen, and what you see described in the Gospels, is Pilate keeps going out to them to communicate with them. They're not coming in. So he's having to do this back and forth thing because they won't come in.

So Pilate repeatedly called Jesus the king of the Jews, or your king, making those references. He tried to find several ways to get Jesus off, get him excused, hand it off to somebody else, including offering to set him free by the Passover tradition. The crowd called instead for the release of Barabbas, the robber.

So at about that same point, Matthew 27, 19 records while he, Pilate, was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him a message saying, have nothing to do with this righteous man or that righteous man, for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of him.

Now what's interesting is lots of different speculations have been generated about Pilate's wife. There was a tradition that seems to originate a couple centuries later, that Pilate's wife had become a Christian. But that's unconfirmed. There have even been plays written and movies made all about this one verse about Pilate's wife. That's all we really have about it, and we don't have any other record about Pilate's wife other than things that originated centuries later. OK, so John 19, 1 through 3.

Pilate then took Jesus and scourged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and put a purple robe on him. And they began to come up to him and saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and they give him slaps in the face. Now one question, did Pilate actually personally scourge Jesus?

No, he wasn't the one that did it. Why do we say that this is an okay way to put this? Pardon? Yeah, people work for Pilate. We would say, you know, Herod built this, Herod built that. We don't really mean that he was the craftsman that did it. We mean he was the one who headed it up and authorized it and that sort of thing. So that's what this is referring to. Let me see. Scourging. Yeah.

And again, this was just, this wasn't saying he's going to be crucified. This is standard interrogation technique. That's the way you interrogate them. What's our standard interrogation technique now in a modern police force? Waterboarding. Waterboarding? I'm saying more like in the U.S. kind of thing. What would be a standard interrogation technique?

Questioning, you get him into a room, you question him, you sit him across the table. Give him a cup of coffee. Yeah, you give him a cup of coffee, you know, try to get their DNA off, you know, all that standard stuff. And so you would have those kinds of things that would... be done, you know, in our day. But back in that day, it would be a standard interrogation technique. Nobody would think anything unusual. Oh, you just take them and whip them.

And, yeah. Okay, and I would say today is to make them say the story over and over and over again in an effort to find a mistake, where a pilot, I think, was trying to do that as well in a certain degree, but Jesus didn't walk free. Yeah. And think of it, why would Pilate think that turning Jesus over for a flogging was something he ought to do?

He thought that the Jews might think that's sufficient. Okay, yeah, that would be one reason. In other words, maybe if I flog him, they'll be satisfied and I can let him go. As a matter of fact, he talks about, I find no guilt in him and he tried to set him free. So that would be one reason. Are there other reasons why he would think that, you know, let's go ahead and do this. Yeah, one thing is just, you know, you know, this is the standard interrogation techniques. That'd be another reason. Are there others?

Now, when an accusation was made by Peter John, it said they flogged him and then they let him go. You know, it was just a case of they assumed that they were guilty. Yes, yes. Very good. It was just to be an example. You would flog him and let him go, and that's probably what Pilate was hoping he could do, right?

Give them a sound beating. The other thing was with the flogging, as you're interrogating, you get something out of people that maybe you wouldn't otherwise. And here's Jesus. Had Jesus given them a bunch of information? Not so much. He'd been, in some cases, unresponsive. Just kept quiet. And so this might be a way to get something out of him that he hadn't gotten before.

At the bottom part there, the second to last paragraph, the crown of thorns, the purple robe, and the hail king of the Jews were all cruel mocking of Jesus. Yet Jesus did not defend himself in the leaf, though he certainly had the power to do so. Jesus would soon die voluntarily for the sins of Pilate, these soldiers who abused him, the Jewish leaders who turned him over to be crucified, Judas who betrayed him, Peter who denied knowing him, and everyone on the planet from Adam to the last one born in the coming millennial kingdom.

Isn't this amazing? Jesus is the only one that knows what's going on here. The only one. Nobody else. Nobody else knows what's going on. But Jesus is soon to die within a few hours for the sins of all of them, including those who put the nails in, those who slapped him in the face, the ones who falsely accused him. And as we'll see here in this account, their accusations shifted, their strategy shifts, the Jewish leader's strategy shifts in the middle of the passage. OK, so John 19, 4 through 7.

Pilate came out again and said to them, Behold, I am bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in him. Jesus then came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, Behold the man. So when the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out saying, Crucify! Crucify! So, top of page three here.

So Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he made himself out to be the Son of God. So here's Pilate, having carried out the scourging and mocking, may have thought that scourging and mocking Jesus and presenting him before the crowds would satisfy the Jews, and Jesus could then be set free. So it's apparent that it wasn't just crucifixion after flogging, but that he actually wanted to just do the flogging and then let him go. That's what his intent was. And what's the Jews' strategy? What's the reason that Jesus ought to die? Blasphemy. Blasphemy. Here he is claiming to be the Son of God. And by the way, what did they mean by that? What do they mean by the Son of God? Did they mean the same thing we mean? No. And what do you mean by that? They mean that He claimed to be God Himself. Yeah, they mean that He claimed to be God Himself.

And let's ask one other question. Do the Jews believe in a Trinity? They do not, okay? So when we say, you know, Spirit, Son of God, Father, they don't have quite the same terms. Yes. They don't believe that God has a Son. Yeah, there isn't a Father, Son, Holy Spirit belief at all among the Jews. You know, God is one, is their perception. And so they have different use and different understanding of these terms, Spirit and Son and Father, than we do.

I understand that from the fact that it's supposed to be monotheism, and that goes all the way back to Exodus and the first three commandments, but where did the Messiah fit in as far as their belief then? If he wasn't the Son of God, who did they see him as?

Here's very interesting, I keep making mention of it. I sat down with an Orthodox rabbi here locally, just talked for a couple of hours about a decade ago roughly. And as I talked to this rabbi, the first thing out of his mouth was he said, we are the Pharisees.

Because you think about it, the Sadducees were all died out when the Romans attacked. They tended to hang around the temple area. They were more among the Levites and the priests and then some of the Sanhedrin. But when the Romans attacked, the Sadducees as a group ended. They stopped. The Essenes were off in the distance, but they had no protection and so they ended when the Romans attacked.

But the Pharisees had been missionary They were the ones that had gone and established synagogues throughout the Roman Empire. So even if you squash everything in Jerusalem, they've still got synagogues all over the Roman Empire and beyond. So it's the Pharisees that survived. The Pharisees are the ones that continued on what became Orthodox Judaism. And then you have a break off from that after the 1600s of the conservative and reformed groups. Until about the 1600s, Orthodox Jews was all there was. There were some variations among them, but nonetheless, as a group, the Pharisees. So the Pharisees basically believed that the Messiah was a descendant of David, but not deity. A descendant of David, but not deity.

What's interesting is as you read various Old Testament scriptures, that's not what you see. But that would probably also explain why the rabbi that I talked to, when I tried to talk to him about various Old Testament passages, he said, I don't want to talk about it. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, but you ask a good question. There was and is a lot of confusion about the Messiah among Jews. It still is today. Yes? So they had in their minds two messiahs, maybe? Well, here's the confusion among the Jews.

They have the Messiah who is the reigning Messiah, Messiah ben David. as it's called. They have the suffering Messiah, Messiah Ben-Joseph, who was less often talked about. They also have the prophet that Moses talked about, but they had those all as separate people, separate individuals, and so there was a lot of confusion. They never put it together and said this is the same guy.

So because of that confusion, it was one of the reasons why Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, ha, ha, ha. You're no Messiah because that doesn't fit the description of what we call the Second Coming. What does the word Messiah mean? Messiah means anointed, anointed one. And they would anoint prophets, priests, and kings, and Jesus is all three, correct?

Just in David, he said, take not your spirit from me, recognizing God's spirit. Yeah, it's interesting. Take not your spirit from me. However, the Jews did not recognize that as a Holy Spirit as a part of the Trinity as we do. And that's one thing. If you go through the Old Testament, just by the Old Testament itself, you can put together the teaching about the Trinity. But the Jews did not recognize it as such. And just the same way they didn't put it together about the Trinity, they also didn't put it together about the Messiah and the Messiah ben David and Messiah ben Joseph, that is, a suffering Messiah after Joseph, the one who suffered and then was made ruler in Egypt, that's what I'm referring to, and then the prophet. So they didn't put these things together, and those things in Orthodox Judaism today still continue, yes.

Ah, yes. Yes, there we go. Yes, you're correct about that. Okay. So here's Pilate, having carried out the scourging and mocking, may have thought that scourging and mocking Jesus and presenting before the crowds would satisfy the Jews, and Jesus would then be set free. But that would not fulfill the plan that the leaders of the Jews made. In other words, were the Jews, based on their plan, going to be happy with just beating Jesus and setting him free? Not at all.

They were going to be persistent. And as we're going to see here shortly, they would even change their strategy in the middle of the trial. They would change their strategy in the middle of the trial. So here we see this. He could not pass Jesus' death off to the Jews. They would not receive it. The Jews wanted Pilate to be the one to sentence him. Period. Instead, they call out repeatedly that Jesus be crucified. The Jews deliver an ultimatum to Pilate. He must sentence Jesus to death. We want death, nothing short of that. You're not going to get away with just flogging him and setting him go. So you think that was because they feared the crowd and his followers and they could thereby blame it on to the Romans? That they actually killed the person that they actually respected and listened to and were following for a while?

One of the things we're going to see here is fear is one of the biggest motivators in this whole proceeding. And in the end, that's what's going to get piloted. But they're going to have to change their strategy in order for fear to work. I don't know if they thought of it on the fly, or just right in the middle of things they thought of it, or whether they said, here's our plan B. But nonetheless, they used fear, and even pilots' fear. They used pilots' fear in order to get their way. Let's take a look at John 19, 8 through 11 there. Therefore, when Pilate heard the statement, he was even more afraid. Okay, was he afraid before? Yep. Okay, now he's even more afraid. Turn up the dial a few notches here.

And he entered into the praetorium. And again, the praetor was the Latin name for the governor, right? The praetorium. Again, and said to Jesus, where are you from? Notice this going in and out. Here's Jesus, who is before Pilate on the judgment seat. And then here are these Jews outside who won't enter in because then they'll be unclean. So Pilate, he's actually himself doing this running back and forth between the Jewish leaders and talking to Jesus, having to go back and forth here.

So where are you from? But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have the authority to release you and I have authority to crucify you? Jesus answered, you would have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above. For this reason, he who delivered me to you has the greater sin. Wow. Pilate was likely irritated that Jesus did not answer, but probably also puzzled too, right?

But still he was concerned for what he might be getting himself into. What's going on here? Imagine, here the Jewish leaders come up, you know, this guy is an evildoer. What did he do? He's evil. Believe us, he's evil, right? We have a law that says he's got to die. Okay, what did he do? Well, he's evil. And so then soon we're going to see they change their strategy.

They couldn't come up with a claim. Jesus wouldn't tell him what he had done. Because after all, what had he done? Nothing. So you can imagine, here's Pilate trying to put this together and he's the one having to run back and forth between the judgment seat and the Jewish leaders outside. So Jesus did not defend himself in such a way that Pilate could set him free, and the Jewish leaders had stirred up the crowds to demand Jesus' crucifixion with persistence and volume.

So you imagine, here's Jesus who's being fairly quiet, sometimes even silent and not answering the question. So that's one hand, so inside it's quiet, except for his wife's message. Inside it's quiet, outside things are getting really out of hand, and he's having to run back and forth. This is getting to be a wild affair, and he's wondering, what's going on here? Looking at Jesus, where are you from? What are you doing here?

So the Jewish leaders are now stirring up the crowds to demand Jesus' crucifixion with persistence and volume, and all the while Jesus is keeping quiet inside. Yet this trial, having shifted now to the will of the crowds, would soon bring about Jesus' death. Jesus stated that Pilate's authority to carry out the sentence of crucifixion came from God himself. Pilate, your authority to carry this out, God gave it to you. You wouldn't have it otherwise.

I have a quote here from Isaiah 53, 7. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth like a lamb that is led to slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before its shears, so he did not open his mouth. This passage, Isaiah 53, is one that the Jews used to look upon as that was Messiah ben Joseph, the suffering Messiah. About 1850, the preponderance of Jewish rabbis shifted to Isaiah 53 is about Israel. Israel suffering.

They bring up another false accusation. They say, if you release him, you're no friend of the Seekers. Yes, and we're going to see that in just a minute. And that's their change of strategy. That's their change of strategy. See, what they're seeing is Pilate keeps, with this back and forth motion, Pilate keeps saying, I find no guilt in him. I find no guilt in him. Because the Jewish leaders hadn't brought anything up. And Jesus isn't saying he did anything wrong either. How can I charge him with something? Nobody is saying anything about what he did. Nobody is saying a thing. Jesus isn't. They aren't.

Yes? You said he was prayed before. Can you imagine how he felt when Jesus said that he came from God himself? Yeah. You'd have no authority at all if it wasn't given from above. Yes. So the Jewish law requiring capital punishment for blasphemy was not adequate from Pilate's viewpoint? No. He says, you do it yourself. And of course, they couldn't. But he just says, I'm not having anything to do with this. So they needed something else. Yeah. And that's why the change of strategy. This wasn't doing it. He was still saying, I find no guilt in them. And you guys do it. But in fact, they couldn't.

Can you think of an instance where the Jews killed somebody in the New Testament? Stephen was an exception. And what they did, they would occasionally carry it out. What they did is they'd go out to the east of Jerusalem, just over the wall where you couldn't see it from the Fortress Antonia. And they'd carry it out there, as in the case of Stephen.

But here they want They want Pilate to pull this off, and they figure by shifting strategies and continuing the pressure that they could get it done. So this trial was to proceed to Christ's death, though that is not what Pilate wanted, because God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, and Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us.

See, there was a misconception among many in the early church that Jesus was the King of the Jews. But that the Jews rejected their king, so now he's the church's king. So that misconception is actually still with us today. And so, not understanding, no. Jesus was crucified not just because the Jews rejected their king. Jesus was crucified because he intended to be.

Because what you see here after John 3.16, God so loved the world that he gave his Son, we see in Galatians 2.20, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

Ephesians 5.2, Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us.

Ephesians 5.25, Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. He gave himself. Why? Why did he give himself? Because he loved.

Galatians 2.20, Ephesians 5.2 and 25. He gave himself up intentionally because he loved.

As far as Jesus was concerned, when it came to put the nails in, he was saying, let's do this. Not, no, no, no, you've got the wrong guy, you're making a terrible mistake. No. Let's do this. Isn't it interesting? It wasn't a matter of Jesus being victimized. No. He deliberately did not answer. He deliberately answered in ways that were actually giving Pilate some spiritual revelation, and us.

Let's turn to the top of page 4. I'll read John 19, 12. As a result of this, Pilate made efforts to release him, but the Jews cried out, saying, If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar. Ding! New strategy. They hadn't brought it up before, but boy did they come out with one now. Was Pilate afraid? Yes. And it says earlier he was more afraid. Now he was really afraid.

What's going to happen if it gets back to Rome that they let go somebody who was opposing Caesar? Yeah, he gets a red slip because it's not only you're not going to be governor, you're not going to be alive. You're not going to be alive. That's going to be the end.

So he was afraid and then he got more afraid and now he is really afraid. His afraid meter just went to 10. It's pegged. So we have a change of strategy among these Jewish leaders and this is going to be the one that does it. This is going to be the one that does it.

They switched from Jewish law condemning Christ to Roman law condemning Pilate if he did not sentence Christ. You see the difference there? At first, Jesus is condemned by Jewish law, and Pilate says, I don't care about that. What's that to me? I'm not a Jew. But, Pilate, if you let this guy go, after all, he claimed to be a king. If you let this guy go, you're really cooked. You're in deep yogurt. So, the Jews despised the rule of Caesar and all of his governors, officers, and soldiers. They hated, hated the Romans. But now, they're going to put on a face. They're going to put on a face.

The Jewish leaders knew they could press Pilate on that point, even though Jesus made no claim to be at odds with Caesar, and did not have his small band of disciples fighting against the Jews or the Romans. Yet the Jews pressed that Pilate would not be loyal to Caesar if he let Jesus free, since he had claimed to have been born the King of the Jews. Did he not? Yes.

That is in fact what the Magi did when they came into Jerusalem. They said, where is he who is born King of the Jews? So here would be this amazing claim And the Jews are going to turn it for all it's worth, even though Jesus didn't come in. He's got no army. He's got no fight. So this is an amazing claim.

Yes? I think that Pilate then brings up a way to get out of it. He said, shall I crucify? Ah, yes. And so he starts changing the strategy. We're going to see this shortly here. Before we get back to Caesar, that Pilate lets someone go. Uh-oh. He says, I'm in trouble here. OK, now. John 19, 13 through 15. Therefore, when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down in the judgment seat at a place called the pavement. But in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, behold your king. So they cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king? And the chief priest answered, we have No king but Caesar.

Amazing claim. According to Roman law, Pilate was permitted to take the temperature of the crowd in pronouncing sentence. That's the strategy he's shifting to now that he is really, really afraid. It's not Pilate did it, it's they did it. And so yes, he would be the one pronouncing sentence because that was his authority. But he was now going to take the element of Roman law that would allow him to take the temperature of the crowd and see what the crowd wanted and include that in the decision and basically wash his hands of it, both literally and figuratively. So that was what would take place next.

So he shifted also from behold the man earlier to behold your king. Why would he say behold your king now instead of behold the man? Why would he present that, make that change? Why is that significant? Now it's the claim to be king that Pilate had previously brought out and was in fact going to be on the sign above Jesus' head, right? It was the claim to be the king that was going to be the thing to really inflame the Jews and make Pilate very afraid. And so Pilate's got that front and center in his thinking now, this claim to be king, that's what this is all about really.

Yes? Don't you think that also gives him an answer to Rome and Caesar and all the rest of it? This is his justification for going through all this if it turns bad. And he was a king. If this thing turns sour, if there's something unknown, this is a life or death situation for him. So he's looking at it and he says, this is my only move. And I'm going to take the temperature of the people and basically let them decide.

The reference to the six hour has brought about quite a bit of discussion because the time was ordinarily marked at 6 a.m. being the start of the marking of time. For example, Jesus was crucified in the third hour. There was, however, an unusual, a less often used system of time that marked the start of the day at midnight under part of the Roman customs. And so that's the case here.

Let's ask this question. Do we have different ways of noting time? And we have our AM and PM, which we are accustomed to. How about if you step into the military? Right, they've got a different timing system. And so that would be an example of the kind of different timing system that would have it. This is the sixth hour when it really is zero hour by most of the So upon the question, shall I crucify your king, the Jewish leaders are shameful.

They claim loyalty to the despised pagan Caesar who claims to be deity rather than the true deity who is their real Messiah, the Son of God. Isn't this amazing? Yes. I think it shows what's been going on all along and why Jesus came. And that's because their will was more important than God's will. They never cared about God's will. It was only, you know, what's my position here? How can I get even higher? How can I have more authority? How can I have more power? It's them. And that's what Jesus was trying to show them.

I got this question for you. Is there anybody present here this day who does not want Jesus to be crucified? Including Jesus himself. Is there anyone present who does not want Jesus to be crucified? At the end of the day here. Pardon? The disciples did not want Jesus crucified. They didn't understand the purpose in it. Yeah, Tom? Certain women in Jerusalem? I was going to say women because they supposedly were a big support for his ministry. Any others? A being called Satan. Let's ask this question.

Does Satan want Jesus crucified or not? Did Satan enter Judas it says? Didn't he want him to crucify because he didn't understand what that would do until it happened? Isn't it interesting? I think as you look at someone like Satan, he's got a rather confused position because on the one hand it seems like he was motivating Judas to be the betrayer in that direction.

What we saw in Hebrews, is that by Christ being crucified, it took one of Satan's threats out of the picture. Imagine Satan is rather mixed here, and in the end, was Satan happy with what happened? Not really, because people got saved. In the end, momentous things happened on that cross. And you can imagine eventually Satan going, oh no, what have I done?

What have I done? Yes. But when Jesus was alive, he was a definite affront to Satan. Certainly. The more people that he got to believe, he was turning these people toward God and increasing their faith and making it stronger. So he couldn't tolerate that. And he was Demonizing all these people. Yeah, so I mean Yeah, yeah, this is a tough one. It's there's almost a certain spiritual insanity With Satan you can imagine here's all these things predicted in scripture And he's going to play into things during the tribulation period will it work No in the end it won't work. He will not have rule and In the end, he will be bound. In the end, he will be put to the lake of fire. And by the way, he's not going to be the chief or the top or the head of anything.

Pilot did not, in fact tried numerous times to get Jesus out. At the end of the day, he was forced to it and actually carried out the sentence. But he tried everything, and you have to say he tried hard to resist it, but this last and final strategy, if you don't crucify him, Caesar's going to find out, and by the way, we're going to make sure he finds out, and you're going to be in trouble, big trouble, like not existing anymore, not alive anymore. Okay, now, anybody else who did not want Jesus to be crucified, that was present there, Pardon? Pilot's wife. Okay, good. And who else?

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Yeah, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. And they were on the Sanhedrin, the council, but they had been shut down previously. It's recorded earlier in John that Joseph of Arimathea, excuse me, Nicodemus, had tried to speak up in Jesus' defense and they shut him down.

So it was very clear that wasn't going to happen. So if you think about it, there were a number of different people who didn't want this to come about. But interestingly enough, both the Jewish leaders and Jesus wanted this crucifixion to take place. And here's one more strange thing.

We have as a motivation love that he gave himself. Was there any other motivation that Jesus had? for going to the cross beside love. God's will. Obedience. And what else? Fulfill God's purpose. His eternal purpose. Fulfill God's eternal purpose. And let's think about this.

Hebrews 12.2 says, for the joy set before Him. He endured the cross. Amazing motivations of love, and this is kind of startling, joy. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross.

So this is a dramatic, astounding moment. where you have, you know, the crowd is screaming at the instigation of the Jewish leaders, crucify him, crucify him. And the Sanhedrin, in great part, is pressing for this all the more, even though it's an unjust claim. At the same time, you have these, you know, smaller groups who say, no, I don't want this to happen. And at the same time, you have Jesus saying, yeah, let's do this. Ah, okay. Sin has to be paid for. Yes. Yeah, because of his love, the sense of justice, God's absolute holiness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

This is that Jesus, who right before raising Lazarus, wept. Amazing dramatic moment, yes. The question is, how can this be joy set before him? Yeah, it is difficult for us to comprehend how could this possibly be joy? From a physical standpoint, a horrific death. and then to take upon himself the sins of the whole world, including those who are driving the nails in, including Pilate. Yes. Because he knew what was on the other side. Yes. Yeah. It's his perspective is eternal.

He basically, I'll put common terminology, he made a deal with the Father before he said, let there be light. And But when this whole world that we look at and live in is all gone in history, that joy that was set before him will be fulfilled. He had a perspective before this world began and after this world is done. And that goes along with what Paul said when he said to the effect that don't focus on the sufferings of this world because they're minimal compared to the glory of the next world.

And so that's what he's doing. He's focusing on the positives of God's plan not the negative of God's plan. And I think that's the lesson for anyone of faith. Try not to focus on the negative, but focus on the positive, because there's always a positive. Yeah, yeah. Let's ask another question. Was there anyone present that day for whom Jesus did not die? Was there anyone present for whom Jesus did not die? Huh? Did Jesus die for Judith?

Isn't that amazing? You know, first John, he died for the sins of the whole world. The whole world. From Adam to the last person to be born on this planet. He died for the sins of the whole world. Yeah. That's right. But he died for his sins. I mean, Adam was long since dead, right? And so this is the amazing thing. Here is Christ who would take upon himself the sins of the whole world, dying even for those who gave no thought to his death. Even for those who would turn it all away.

One of the ways I've in the past given this as an example is Let's say that each of us owed a debt of $4 trillion. I don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of money. And you are going to be held in a prison with your death pending if you didn't pay the $4 trillion.

And so then here we are all gathered in this great prison room. And somebody walks in, and he says, I've got checks for everybody. Here's checks for everybody, and here's one made out to you, and one made out to you, and one made out to you, and one made out to you. And the money is already in the account. It is all paid.

It's right there, and all you've got to do is to take this check, and take it up to the exit door, turn it over, sign it, Hand it in and you walk free. So some people get the check and they go, whoo! And they say, you know, zoom, I'm going out that door. And they turn the check over and they sign it and they're out. And other people take the check and they say, you're kidding me. There's no such thing, you know. Rip it up, throw it on the floor. Other people say, you know, I'll think about it. Stick it in their pocket. Isn't that kind of the way it is?

Here the price is completely paid. As a matter of fact, that's what Jesus said on the cross just before he died. The translation, it is finished, is actually an accounting term. And it's said in the perfect tense, which means it's a completed past action with ongoing results into the future. Jesus said, it is all completely and permanently paid. That's what he said on the cross. It is finished is actually kind of weak.

It's all completely and permanently paid. The account is full for every single person on the planet, from Adam to the last one born. It's all completely, permanently paid. All you gotta do is take the check and turn it over, sign it, and walk free. Completely. Completely at someone else's expense.

Because there's no chance you could ever do it yourself, and there's no chance you could ever pay it back. There's no way to pay it back. Right? And I give the example of $4 trillion, because that's just something not even the richest billionaire in the world could touch. I'm not sure we'd go into debt that much, right?

So this is an amazing thing, that the Savior would pay the price for all of us, even for those who would take the check and just stick it in their pocket. Even for those who would rip it up and throw it on the floor. Amazing. Really amazing. Amazing love. amazing motivation. Amazing motivation.

Let's pray, okay? Lord, this is an astounding passage and as a prelude to the passage ahead here, where our Lord would be crucified. And Lord, we just pray that the immensity of this moment, the not just momentary drama, but the eternal drama would sink in to our hearts and our minds. Lord, what amazing, astounding grace that you have shown towards us. We thank you for that amazing grace. We pray in Jesus' name.