The stoning of Stephen - Why were the Jews allowed to stone Stephen but had to go through Pilate to kill Jesus?

John 18:31-32. Pilate seeks to put the responsibility of judging the Lord upon the Jews. In reply, they betray their settled purpose that, whatever Pilate's verdict may be, they have already concluded that the Lord must die. But the Romans having taken from the Jew the power to execute a death sentence, they have to leave the matter in the hands of Pilate. Thus Jew and Gentile become the instruments for fulfilling the Lord's own words as to the death He was about to die (Acts 4:27-28).

He bears witness to this marvellous revelation, the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. His enemies, defeated as they know they are, can only resort to the folly of stopping their ears and violently silencing the witness of God. The Romans denied the Jews the right to execute capital punishment, but on this occasion the Jews took advantage of the absence of the Roman governor from Jerusalem at the time; and Stephen was murdered without any trial, taken outside the city and stoned to death. A young man named Saul is mentioned as the custodian of the clothes of the witnesses of Stephen's death.

His words at the end are beautifully similar to those of the Lord Jesus at His death, but it is the Lord Jesus to whom he prays "receive my spirit." What calm, blessed victory of faith is this! Then, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Wonderful grace indeed, so like the words of his Master on the cross. But Stephen cannot say, "they know not what they do;" for the Jews now had an unmistakable witness to the resurrection of Christ in the powerful ministry of the Spirit of God, and they deliberately rejected it. They had refused Christ as the Man of sorrows on earth: now they refuse Him as glorified by God in heaven. "Much more shall not we escape if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven" (Heb.12:25). We are told simply of Stephen that "he fell asleep," for the sting of death had been taken away by the death of His Lord: now death for the believer is merely "sleep."

[24] The Jews could only condemn to death with the sanction of the Procurator. At this juncture, however, there was none. Pilate had been ordered to Rome to answer charges made against him, and no one was appointed in his place. The procuratorship was vacant. Further, just at this time Tiberius the emperor died. Events thus favouring, the Sanhedrin, taking things into their own hands, put Stephen to death without fear of being called to account for it.

Like others since their day, to an unanswerable reply they would resort to force. And apparently without giving him any time for reflection, they hurried Stephen off to execution. For, crying with a loud voice, and stopping their ears, they rushed on him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him. No sentence, that we read of, was pronounced. In a state of frenzy they had their way. Stephen was stoned, [24] the witnesses laying down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. By the law the witnesses were to cast the first stone at the criminal (Deut.17:7). This was not overlooked at that moment.

But the Jews had not the power of inflicting a penalty of death, and had need, therefore, of the Roman governor for this purpose, and were, no doubt, full of grim satisfaction at the thought of having him in their hands, towards whom they had plenty of ground for ill-feeling, and little enough for good will. Crucifixion was not a Jewish penalty: they might hang the dead upon a tree, but not the living. The Lord, the Yielder up of His own life, had declared that He was to be delivered to the Gentiles to be crucified.

There was a spiritual reason governing all here. For the curse of the law was to be upon Him, and the public, open sign of the curse was hanging on a tree (Deut. 21:23); but the infliction of this as a Jewish penalty would have carried this beyond death, and altered its significance. In the hands of the Gentiles alone would crucifixion answer to its end. But this we must look at further in a little while.

Pilate tells the Jews to judge the Lord Jesus according to their law, for he knew well that the whole matter was one of religious prejudice, not a major criminal case, which the Romans did not allow the Jews to handle. But they had already determined, before any trial, that He was to be put to death, and they could not legally do this themselves; therefore they demanded that Pilate should condemn Him to death. More than this, the Lord Himself had foretold that His death would be that of crucifixion (v. 32), the Roman means of capital punishment, rather than that of Jewish stoning.

The trial of our Lord, if such a mockery can be called that, divides into two parts: that before the high priest, which may be termed the religious side; and that before Pilate, or the political. The Jews had no power of executing the death penalty, which rested in the hands of the Romans. This explains why the Lord, after His condemnation at the hands of the Jews was brought before the Gentile power.

It was in the days of this fourth Gentile monarchy, that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared in humiliation on the earth. Judea was then a Roman province, as was evinced by Caesar's image and superscription appearing on the coins. The power to inflict capital punishment seems to have resided in the Roman governor alone. Hence, the Jews were unable, except by his consent, to compass the death of the Holy and the Just One, who delivered Himself, and was delivered of God into their hands. The Roman empire thus partook with the Jewish people in the awful guilt of rejecting and crucifying the Prince of life. And should it be urged by any, that Pontius Pilate was but a subordinate agent and representative of the imperial power; the mournful answer is at hand, that the imperial power itself did afterwards ratify most fully the deed of its representative, by shedding torrents of christian blood.

Again, the supremacy of the Roman government in the land of Israel was demonstrated by their exclusive exercise of the function of condemning prisoners to the extreme penalty. After the flood the authority of man in government to punish the murderer by death, previously reserved by God, was conferred by Him upon Noah and his descendants. God decreed that "Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he man" (Gen. 9:6). This power was recognised and in use throughout the successive forms of government in Israel, and after Israel's subjugation it was exercised by the Gentile empires. For instance, Daniel testified of Nebuchadnezzar, the "head of gold," that "all peoples, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive" (Dan. 5:19).

And the Roman emperors, though not so absolute in their rule as their Babylonian predecessors, "reserved to themselves and to their local representatives the right of judicial execution. The Jews admitted to Pilate their lack of this authority: "It is not lawful," they said, "for us to put any man to death" (John 18:31). This authority was in the hands of the Roman governor who arrogantly and insolently said to his Just and Holy prisoner, "Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power [authority] to crucify thee, and have power [authority] to release thee? "(John 19:10). This authority of Pilate Jesus did not deny, but rather traced that authority to its true source — not to his imperial master at Rome but to the Sovereign Ruler of all: Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above" (cp. Rom. 13:1-4). Never was this judicial authority more flagrantly abused than it was by Pilate, the representative of the Roman empire. Weakly submitting to the will of the Jews, he freed Barabbas the malefactor whom he should have executed for murder, and condemned Jesus the Benefactor to be crucified.

They hanged Him, then, upon a tree — "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." It was not, as we know, the Jewish way of punishing criminals. We learn from the Old Testament Scriptures that when an offender was put to death by the Jews he was stoned. But to be hanged, to be placed upon a gibbet, was a Gentile, a heathen mode of execution; and thus it was they handed Christ over to the Romans, saying, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death." The heathen Roman soldiery were little better than savage executioners, and were unrivalled for brutality and cruelty. They placed the Blessed One between two malefactors, proving what I have said before, that there was no amount of ignominy, scorn, and shame, too great to invest Him with in that moment. And therefore the Holy Ghost records here: "There were also two other, malefactors, led with Him to be put to death. And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him." vv. 32, 33.