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.
And he went out, bearing his cross, to the place called [place] of a skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha;
The trial is over, and the Lord walks out of the city carrying His own cross to a place named after a skull. John alone tells it that way, and both the name of the place and the direction of the walk carry meaning.
Other accounts describe Him being taken away by His enemies. John's wording puts the movement in the Lord Himself, and one writer reads this as deliberate on John's part.
When he describes the going out to Golgotha, he is the only witness who says, "He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull." The other records tell us His foes led Him out, and John tells us this too, for that was the height of their guilt. But He went out — that was the triumph of His love. He went out; do we not see the majesty of that lonely Man, with thorns on His head and a cross on His shoulders? He was not driven out or dragged out, but in obedience to His Father's command He went out to lay down His life and to take it again.
The same detail is read as a sign of who was actually directing events.
Notice it says, "He went out." He was in control from beginning to end; He was leading, even though He had to carry that awful cross on the road to the place of execution.
In Luke, Simon of Cyrene carries the cross behind Jesus. Commentators read this not as a clash with John, but as two stages of one journey.
Several features stand out in John's Gospel, fitting his theme. In general, we may say they suggest the divine dignity of our Lord... So we see Him bearing His own cross. This in no way contradicts the fact that they compelled Simon the Cyrenian to bear it after Him. From Mark we would judge that our Lord was bearing His own cross at the start of the journey to Golgotha. On the way they met Simon coming in from the country, took the cross from our Lord, and put it on him.
Some say the Lord collapsed under the weight. One writer rejects that, and gives Simon's part a different sense.
The Lord alone is spoken of here as bearing His cross. As they went, we read elsewhere that they made Simon carry it after Him (Luke 23:26). This had to be shown: in one sense believers are identified with Him in the bearing of His cross — not bearing God's judgment, but bearing the world's rejection. John however focuses all attention on the blessed Son of God Himself. Note too that nothing in the account suggests the weight of the cross was too much for the Lord, as some have said. That is only human imagination.
The name came from the shape of the rock. The picture it makes still matters.
The place got its name from the odd shape of the rock, but it is significant for all that! A skull speaks of the humbling end of all man's power and glory. In some living man it may once have held as brilliant and powerful a brain as ever existed; and it has come to this! The Son of God accepted the judgment of death as from man's hand. He went to bear it in a place that pictured the end of all man's glory.
He did not simply end up there.
First, He comes, bearing His cross, to Golgotha, the place of a skull — the place of the kingdom of death... For this the Lord sought it. Here His love to men brought Him. Only He could lift this burden from them, and for this He must come Himself under it.
The men who arranged this death were not the ones giving it its meaning.
The injustice of Pilate and the frenzied hatred of the Jews could not have brought the Lord of glory to Golgotha. "He went forth bearing His cross." He offered Himself without spot to God... That "hence" had been reached at last, and without hesitation or haste He went out bearing His cross.
The Lord died in an outside place. One writer turns that into a question for us.
He took the outside place, and His voice falls on our ear from there. Do we listen to it? Do we understand it? Should we not think more seriously about the place where Jesus died? Should we be content to reap the benefits of Christ's death, without seeking fellowship with Him in His rejection? God forbid! "Let us therefore go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach." There is immense power in these words.
- Out. John alone says He went out — not driven, not dragged, but moving under His Father's command to lay down His life.
- Out carrying. He bore His own cross. Simon carried it later on the road — no contradiction, but a picture of believers sharing His rejection, not His judgment.
- Out to a skull. Golgotha pictures the end of all human power and glory — the place where death reigns.
- Out in love. He sought that place; only He could lift the burden of death from men, so He came under it Himself.
- Out to Him. He took the outside place, so the call is to go out to Him there. We share His reproach, not just the benefits of His death.