But they cried out in a mass saying, Away with this [man] and release Barabbas to us;
Pilate tried a compromise instead of justice, and the crowd answered with one roar. Two men stood side by side — one a murderer, one who had done nothing wrong — and the crowd asked for the murderer.
The demand for Barabbas grew out of a Passover custom. A judge with no case against the prisoner should never have used it.
The issue was clear: justice had to release Him. Yet Pilate tried a compromise. He made the unjust suggestion that he would whip Jesus before letting Him go. He thought this lesser punishment might satisfy the Jews. By this dishonourable means he was weaving the net that the Jews caught him in. Then he brought another unjust principle into the trial. It was the Roman custom to release one prisoner at the Passover, and the Jews were allowed to choose which one (John 18:39). This practice assumed the prisoner was guilty, so the custom should never have applied to the Lord Jesus.
The custom itself looked back to a rescue.
It helps to know that this custom was a way of remembering how God stepped in for the nation. Each year one prisoner was set free, as a reminder that God had set Israel free long ago.
Luke names the man the crowd wanted. Other Gospels fill in what kind of man he was.
John 18:40 calls him a "robber," and Matthew 27:16-26 calls him "a notorious prisoner." He had started a revolt and had committed murder (Mark 15:7-15). Yet the Jews, led by the chief priests and elders, asked for this man, not the Lord Jesus. Why they asked for this particular prisoner is not known. But their choice shows their ungodliness in the clearest way. They preferred such a notoriously wicked man to the Lord of life and glory, their Messiah. Peter made sure to charge this home to the Jews: "You denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you" (Acts 3:14).
Put the two men side by side and the contrast runs deeper than good against bad. It is a clash of two wills.
In Barabbas we have a most striking picture of man's will; in Jesus the perfect expression of God's. Barabbas pushed his own will through without scruple, whatever it cost others. He defied authority (sedition), plundered property (robbery), and took life (murder). Jesus carried out God's will. But all the cost was His own, and the eternal gain is ours… The world's choice was not the gracious Giver who would lay down His life for others. It was the notable robber who could take life itself to reach his selfish ends… "Not this man, but Barabbas!" was the cry. Terrible decision, but the reason is clear. The will of God was this Man's delight, and bringing in God's will meant displacing man's.
Barabbas walked away with something he had not earned. Commentators read his release as a picture of what the cross does.
Barabbas was released, though guilty and condemned, because the Lord Jesus took his place. Christ was his substitute. Once released, Barabbas might have gone out, looked up at Him who hung on the cross, and said, "He died for me; He paid my penalty." It is a wonderful illustration of the atonement.
The exchange can be seen in the wood itself.
The cross that should have been for Barabbas was used for Jesus! There was plenty of wood to make Jesus a cross of His own. But He who had done nothing wrong was crucified on the cross meant for Barabbas, the murderer!
The crowd thought the choice was theirs. Another hand was at work behind their shout.
The people made a fateful choice: Barabbas — Satan's counterfeit "son of the father." Their choice confirms their guilt. But there is another side. God watches over the scene. He makes sure that His Son is not released as a guilty criminal who has been pardoned, but is condemned while innocent.
Commentators do not leave this scene in the past. They turn the crowd's cry into a question for the reader.
The world cannot do without its religion… but they do not want Christ; they will not have Christ. They want happiness without Him. Forms and ceremonies are an advantage to them… but Christ is not wanted, and He is not welcome. "Not this man, but Barabbas." … You have your Barabbas in some shape or form. It is the very contrast to Jesus Christ, the very opposite of Him.
- The custom. The Passover release assumed the prisoner was guilty. It should never have touched Jesus, but Pilate's compromise trapped him.
- The choice. A murderer and the Lord of glory stood side by side. The people asked for the murderer, and Peter charged that choice home to them.
- The exchange. Barabbas was guilty and condemned, yet he went free. Jesus took his place — an illustration of the atonement.
- The cross. The cross prepared for the murderer carried the One who had done nothing wrong.
- The echo. The cry is still heard. A world that keeps its religion but refuses Christ says the same words in a new form.
who was one who, for a certain tumult which had taken place in the city, and [for] murder, had been cast into prison.
Luke stops in the middle of the trial to name the crimes of the man the crowd wanted set free. The detail matters. It sets the freed prisoner beside the condemned One, and it asks what that choice says about the people who made it.
Luke and Mark give the charges Matthew leaves out. One writer looks at the man's name and at his record, and finds an irony in the word "insurrection". The leaders had invented that charge against Jesus. Barabbas had really done it.
At that time they had a prisoner of a notable kind, suited in every way for comparison and contrast with the spotless Victim now before them. His name says it at once: Barabbas means "son of the father." Mark and Luke add that he had been thrown into prison for sedition; so he had actually committed the crime they were falsely charging against Jesus. On top of that, he was a robber and a murderer. So it would seem impossible for the people to choose Barabbas. And now Pilate wanted to know whether he should release this notorious criminal or "Jesus who is called Christ."
One commentator reads the three charges as a picture of man's will. He sets it beside the will that Jesus carried out.
In Barabbas we have a striking picture of man's will; in Jesus the perfect expression of God's. Barabbas carried out his own will with ruthless determination, no matter what it cost others. He defied authority (sedition), plundered property (robbery), and took life (murder). Jesus carried out God's will. But all the cost was His own, and the eternal gain is ours.
The release took place at Passover, the feast that remembered God's rescue of Israel. One writer explains what the custom stood for, then imagines Pilate weighing his options aloud.
It helps to know that this custom remembered how God once stepped in to save the nation. Each year one prisoner went free, as a reminder that God had once set Israel free. And now the Passover is coming. I must release someone then. Shall I set free Barabbas or Jesus?
So why did the crowd pick him? One writer says the choice was never really about Barabbas.
It is not that the crowd had the slightest regard for Barabbas; the point was that they did not want Jesus.
Another writer weighs where the guilt for that choice fell heaviest.
So this proved the whole world guilty before God. Yet none were so deeply involved as those who should least have been. The people who had the law fell under its curse. That was not only because they disobeyed its commands. Worst of all, they were set on rejecting their own Messiah and putting Him to death — and this while the foreigner tried to let Him go.
Pilate's choice tied the two men together. One commentator sees the gospel in that.
We see him as a chief of sinners, a rebel and a murderer. For him the feast of redemption offers a possible release — but only, on Pilate's terms, if Jesus is given up. Jesus becomes, as it were, the Substitute for the chief of sinners. To "release Barabbas" is "to destroy Jesus." Why? Because He has done evil? The judge asks in vain; where is it? Look deeper than the wicked wills of men. In God's purpose we may see that holy Sin-offering, the true Passover, by which even a Barabbas may be delivered. It is not for any good in him, for Barabbas shows none.
Another writer pictures what the freed man could have said next.
Barabbas was released, though guilty and condemned, because the Lord Jesus took his place. Christ was his substitute. After his release, Barabbas might have gone out and looked up at Him who hung on the cross. He could have said, "He died for me; He paid my penalty." It is a wonderful illustration of the atonement.
One writer asks what that request showed about the people who made it.
Yet the Jews, led by the chief priests and elders, asked for this man's release instead of the release of the Lord Jesus. No one knows why they asked for this particular prisoner. But it shows their ungodliness as clearly as possible: they could choose such a notoriously wicked man in place of the Lord of life and glory, their Messiah. Peter did not fail to press this home on them: "You denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you" (Acts 3:14).
- Charged — Barabbas had truly done the crime the leaders pinned on Jesus: insurrection. He was a robber and a murderer as well.
- Chosen — the crowd did not admire Barabbas; they refused Jesus. That choice showed the whole world guilty, with the leaders most deeply involved.
- Exchanged — Pilate's terms tied the two men together. To free Barabbas was to destroy Jesus, so the innocent One took the guilty man's place.
- Released — at the feast that remembered God's rescue of Israel, a chief of sinners walked free. Nothing good in him earned it.
- Confronted — Peter later put this choice to the city. They had traded the Holy and Righteous One for a murderer.