Pilate therefore says to him, Speakest thou not to *me*? Dost thou not know that I have authority to release thee and have authority to crucify thee?
Pilate has just asked the prisoner where He is from, and Jesus has said nothing. So he reaches for the one thing he is sure of — his office. His question assumes that the man who can order a death has the final word.
Pilate's earlier question went unanswered. The reason lies in what was behind it.
This further charge makes Pilate even more afraid. No doubt he could see in the Lord a majesty and dignity that seemed to him far above that of an ordinary man, and close to the divine. So with fear in his heart, Pilate enters the judgment hall and asks the Lord, "Where are you from?" Fear prompted the question. But his fear was not faith, and it did not come from any sense of need. So the Lord gave Pilate no answer.
The irony is that Pilate's own boast contains the answer he could not get.
It was a shattering situation for Pilate. Without knowing it, he stood in the presence of the Word become flesh. So what was the answer to his unanswered question? It was that Jesus Himself came "from above," from the very Source of Pilate's authority.
Pilate was not lying about his position. What he got wrong was where the power came from — and the answer traces it past Rome altogether.
The Jews admitted to Pilate that they did not have this authority: "It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death" (John 18:31). This authority was in the hands of the Roman governor. His words to his Just and Holy prisoner were proud and insulting. Jesus did not deny this authority. He traced it to its true source — not to his imperial master at Rome, but to the Sovereign Ruler of all... No one abused this judicial authority more openly than Pilate, the representative of the Roman empire. He was too weak to resist the will of the Jews. He freed Barabbas the criminal, whom he should have executed for murder, and condemned Jesus the Benefactor to be crucified.
A judge is not free to do as he likes. Pilate treats his power as a personal choice between two options. That is where the abuse lies.
This irritated Pilate. Once more he made unjust use of his judicial authority to frighten the Lord. He spoke as if he were the final authority on who should be released and who should be crucified. But in fact, the only authority he had was to judge justly, according to the evidence.
Set against the truth, the threat had nothing behind it. The man who claimed to control the outcome was serving someone else's work.
Pilate had no real power against Him at all. If he believed that He was the Son of God — and there was at least fear in his conscience — then he was helping the devil's work against the Son of God. In any case, he could see that the Jews were acting from hypocrisy and envy.
Yet the Lord did not treat the governor's office as worthless.
Did the Lord acknowledge the authority of the Roman judge? Yes. In His ways God had put that disobedient people under the yoke of Rome. The Lord had said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," so He would not treat the authority of Caesar's representative with contempt. But God was over all, and Pilate could do nothing that day except what God allowed from above. God was not responsible for the black flood of hatred pouring out from the hearts of the Jews. Nor was He responsible for the lesser sin of the wavering judge, who was ready to stoop to any injustice to save his face. But He did make Himself responsible for the channel in which the sin of Jew and Gentile flowed.
God's permission never makes the deed innocent. The reply to Pilate holds two truths at once, and lets neither cancel the other.
This answer is perfectly wise. It owns responsibility in the same breath with God's sovereignty, and yet keeps each exactly in its place. It is as though He had said: God has allowed this. He allowed them to have power. But they have used that power to have their own way. It is clear that it is their own way, and not God's. So God marks the various steps in guilt.
That truth came home to Pilate himself.
Having received the power from God, he was responsible to God for the exercise of it. And how did he use it? In condemning God's Son.
- Given — Pilate's authority was real, but he only held it on loan. It came from above, not from Rome.
- Given for justice — his one real power was to judge by the evidence. Talk of releasing or crucifying at will was already a misuse.
- Given, yet hollow — against Christ he had no real power at all. He could act only as God allowed, and in acting he served the devil's work.
- Given, and still guilty — God's permission excuses nothing. He marks the steps of guilt, and His own purpose still goes forward.
- Given, and answered for — power from God is owed back to God. Pilate used his to condemn God's Son.
Jesus answered, Thou hadst no authority whatever against me if it were not given to thee from above. On this account he that has delivered me up to thee has [the] greater sin.
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