But they cried out, Take [him] away, take [him] away, crucify him. Pilate says to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
The trial reaches its last word here. Pilate calls Jesus their King, and the chief priests name a foreign emperor instead. That one answer settles what the nation thinks of the One God sent.
Pilate aimed his contempt at the crowd, but a greater hand drew out their reply.
Pilate tried to get Him out of their fury. At last he was afraid of being accused of disloyalty to Caesar. So he turned to the Jews with contempt and said, "Behold your King." He did not know it, but he was acting under the hand of God. His words brought that memorable word out of their lips, their condemnation and their disaster right up to today: "We have no king but Caesar." They denied their Messiah. The fatal word, which called down the judgment of God, was now spoken; and Pilate hands Jesus over to them.
The strange thing is who said it. The chief priests chose Rome — and they did not even mean it.
They spoke the word that rejected Christ. Their loyalty to Rome was a lie. Their mad guilt was plain: they got rid of the Messiah and God Himself and all their faith and hope. The Jews hated being under Caesar. They admitted neither his right to rule nor their own sin, which was the reason he ruled over them. But they hated the Messiah more — not their idea of Him, but the reality according to God. They had not a thought or a feeling, not a word or a way or a purpose, in common with Jesus. This was because He brought God near to them in grace, and because He showed man in perfect dependence and obedience to God. Their will, with a bad conscience, rejected both.
Another writer reads their tone the same way — that they would say anything at that moment to get their King killed:
In cold, determined hypocrisy they answer that they have no king but Caesar. In fact they hated Caesar's rule, but they would not say this to Pilate: just now they would say anything to persuade Pilate to kill their King.
Pilate is not the innocent party. The verse catches the governor and the priests in the same net.
Pilate gives in to their shouting: "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" The Jews see nothing in Him to make them want Him. Pilate is sure of His innocence and impressed by His majesty and dignity, yet he prefers the friendship of the world to the Son of God. So Jew and Gentile join in crucifying the Lord of glory. As someone has said, "Pilate and the Jews were wholly opposed in their thoughts and wishes; but God was not in the thoughts of one more than the others." These two verses sum up the wickedness of Jew and Gentile. The Jews seal their doom by rejecting their Messiah outright, for they say, "We have no king but Caesar." This is the Jews publicly turning away from God. The Gentile fails completely in government. He hands over to be crucified One in whom he has three times said there is no fault.
This rejection did not begin at the trial. One writer traces it back to the moment Jesus arrived:
So the King has come — the true King, the one everything waits for, the one everything still waits for: for He came only to be rejected... He is worshipped by those far away, but when He comes to His own, they have no heart for Him... There is only the announcement that He has come. At once we see what they later declare openly: they have "no king but Caesar." So there is nothing for it but to leave them to Caesar.
Pilate refused to change what he had written, and commentators see God's purpose in that refusal — and in what still lies ahead for Israel.
God, no doubt, had a purpose in all this. The nation of Israel refused to own their King then. But at Christ's second coming it will yet be their joy to know that they have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.
One writer sets the believer's confession against what the world chose.
What did the world do? It crucified the Saviour and threw Him out. They said, "We will not have this Man to reign over us." The believer says the opposite when he confesses the Lord Jesus: "I will have this Man to reign over me." In other words, he reverses the world's verdict. He takes issue with the world, goes straight against its choice, and like a living fish swims upstream.
- The claim. Pilate says "your King." The priests answer with Caesar — the fatal word that denied their Messiah and every hope they had.
- The lie. They hated Roman rule; they hated Christ more, because He brought God near in grace and exposed their will.
- The verdict. Priest and governor fail together. The nation publicly turns from God, and the governor condemns a man he three times called faultless.
- The consequence. They chose Caesar, so God left them to Caesar.
- The reversal. The nation will yet own Him at His coming, and every believer now says what they refused: this Man shall reign over me.
Then therefore he delivered him up to them, that he might be crucified; and they took Jesus and led him away.
Pilate has said three times that he finds no fault, yet here he hands Jesus over to be crucified. Everything turns on one word — delivered — and the writers ask who really gave Him up, and why.
The governor was never convinced of guilt. One writer traces the pressure that broke him.
Pilate loves this world. He has no sense of his need as a sinner, and no appreciation of the grace of Christ. So the argument of the Jews about his personal interests and worldly advantages sways him. He takes his place on the judgment seat. He makes one more feeble try to escape condemning One in Whom he had three times stated he could find no fault. Then he gives in to their shouting... Pilate is convinced of His innocence and impressed by His majesty and dignity, yet he prefers the friendship of the world to the Son of God.
The office he held makes the act worse. Rome's own representative used his judicial power to kill a man he had cleared.
No one ever abused this judicial authority more openly than Pilate, the representative of the Roman empire. He gave in weakly to the will of the Jews. He freed Barabbas the criminal, whom he should have executed for murder, and condemned Jesus the Benefactor to the cross.
Pilate and the Jews wanted opposite things. That difference matters far less than it looks.
Pilate and the Jews were completely opposed in their thoughts and wishes. But God was no more in the thoughts of the one than of the others. Each had his own way, but all were astray. Now they show themselves the open enemies of righteousness as well as of grace. They cannot see the clearest ways, marks, and proofs of God present in love to man, no matter how low He might come down. The cross of Christ shows up every person for what they are.
This one act ends two histories. Israel gives up its privileges and Gentile power ruins its own credit. The One they condemn stands alone as the only true and faithful person there.
The counsels of God are being fulfilled. Pilate's hands are stained with the blood of the Son of God. The Gentiles who held the authority are guilty of His death. The Jews abandon all the privileges that they had from God. And Jesus, with His innocence owned in court, stands alone in the place of truth and faithfulness. He gives Himself up — He might have escaped, as in the garden, or indeed at any moment — to fulfil the counsels of grace.
Because both sides are in it, the sentence reaches wider than Jerusalem.
It was no partial outbreak of human passion that caused the crucifixion. Satan is "the prince of this world," and the crucifixion showed him to be exactly that. He was able to unite Jew and Gentile, high and low, against the One in whom God was reconciling the world to Himself. Different motives might prompt the deed, and did. But however the motives differed, the deed belonged to all.
Pilate gave Jesus up. So, in another sense, did God — and the writers keep the two apart.
God was not responsible for the black flood of hatred pouring out of the hearts of the Jews. He was not 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. He made the wrath of man to praise Him. The Lamb "truly was foreordained before the foundation of the world." God gave Him up by His own determined purpose and foreknowledge, and men with wicked hands crucified and killed Him (Acts 2:23). The sin of man was fulfilling the will of God.
They "took Jesus," and one writer calls this the moment when "the guilt of men reached its flood-tide" (J T Mawson). Yet John's account never lets the reader think the prisoner has lost control.
Our Lord's divine dignity marks John's account all the way through. He is Master of the whole situation; as He Himself had declared, He laid down His life of Himself. No one took it from Him. He had power to lay it down and He had power to take it again. All was done in obedience to the will of His Father.
- Delivered by self-interest — Pilate said three times that he found no fault. He gave Jesus up anyway, choosing the world's friendship over the Son of God.
- Delivered by hatred — the demand came from men who had no room for God in their thoughts. The cross showed up judge and accusers alike.
- Delivered by all — Jew and Gentile, high and low, acted from different motives but did one deed. The guilt belongs to the world, not to one nation.
- Delivered by God's purpose — God's own purpose gave Him up, yet men crucified Him with wicked hands. God shaped the channel; the sin was theirs.
- Delivered by Himself — He could have escaped at any moment. He gave Himself up, laid down His life, and went as Master of the scene, not its victim.