What did Jesus mean when He referred to the greater sin in John 19:11?

John 19:10-11. Mortified by the Lord's silence, Pilate boasts of his power to crucify or release the Lord at his own will, only to learn from the Lord that he has no power at all against Him except it be given from above. The Lord was about to do the great work whereby God is glorified and sinners that believe are blessed, and so man is allowed to use his power to carry out the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Nevertheless, God will be righteous in dealing with the sin of man in crucifying the Lord of glory. Jew and Gentile are guilty of this, the greatest crime ever committed, but the Jews that delivered their Messiah to the Roman power are guilty of the greater sin.

This irritated Pilate and he used his judicial authority unjustly again in an effort to intimidate the Lord, speaking as being the final authority as to whether one should be released or crucified. But in fact, the only authority had was to judge righteously according to the evidence. More than that, the Lord reproves him solemnly with the assertion that Pilate had no authority at all except that which was allowed him from above (v. 11), for there is no authority but of God. Every other authority is only delegated by Him (Rom. 13:1). But the Lord adds that the high priest, who had delivered Him to Pilate, had the greater sin. For the high priest had used his position of spiritual authority as derived from scripture in a manner grossly contrary to scripture and to God's authority therein clearly declared. He was more responsible, therefore his sin was greater. Yet Pilate's misuse of authority was sin also: the Lord would not allow him to slip of his responsibility.

Nevertheless, the accomplishing of Divine counsels in Christ does not consecrate the will of man that cast Him out and slew Him; and God is righteous in judging the evil. "On this account he that delivered Me up to thee hath greater sin." The Gentile was wicked, the Jew worse; if Pontius Pilate were inexcusably unrighteous, how much more awful the position of Caiaphas or Judas Iscariot and of all they represented that day? If God sent His Son in infinite grace, He did not fail to present adequate proofs of Who and what He is, to leave all inexcusable for not perceiving and receiving Him; not only those who had God's outward authority in this world, but yet more those who had His living oracles that testified of His Son, Who was the centre and object of them all. Were they not witnesses of such works and words and ways as never had been known on earth, proportionately measuring the guilt of those who after such grace rejected One so glorious?

Had this question sprung from real spiritual exercise the Lord doubtless would have responded, as He did to the two disciples with their question, "Where dwellest Thou?" in the first chapter of this Gospel. As it was prompted by superstition and fear the Lord gave no answer. This led Pilate to the threatening assertion of the power of life and death which he held under Caesar. The Lord's reply to this evidently increased his fears — for lo! the Prisoner calmly assumed the judicial position, and with an air of finality pointed him to a higher Power than Caesar as the real Source of any transient authority that he possessed, and also adjudicated on the degree of guilt attaching to himself and to the Jewish leaders respectively. The desperate animus lay with the Jews and he was but their tool. Still, though less guilty than they, he was definitely a guilty man. It was a shattering situation for Pilate, who found himself without knowing it in the presence of the Word become flesh. What then was the answer to Pilate's unanswered question? Surely that Jesus was Himself "from above," come from the Fountainhead of Pilate's authority.

Now the count in the indictment just mentioned by the Jews was one Pilate could not ignore, if substantiated by proof. For the Romans allowed the Jews the exercise of their laws, though the power of carrying out capital punishment was denied them. That allegation, then, on the part of the people raised a grave question. Still it lay with Pilate to see if there was anything in it. This he endeavoured to find out. But the silence on the Lord's part acted as a check. Would He treat the governor in that way? Was He not aware of the large powers with which as Procurator Pilate was entrusted? A word from him could set the Lord free. A word from him could consign Him to death by crucifixion. A last rejoinder from the Lord now came. Pilate's authority was not disputed. But whence came it? "Thou couldest have no power against Me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered Me to thee has greater sin" (11). "There is no power but of God; and those that be are ordained of God"; so wrote the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (13:1). "By Me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By Me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth"; so speaks Wisdom in the Old Testament (Prov. 8:15-16). Pilate had authority, but it was delegated authority. It was from above — i.e. from God. To judge righteous judgment therefore became him. This the high priest, as the official voice of the Sanhedrin, had not done in delivering the Lord to the secular power — the Roman Procurator. In righteousness he should have acted differently. He had condemned the Lord for blasphemy; but Dan. 7:13, 22, showed, that One who is man could also be God. To that Scripture the Lord had twice referred him (Matt. 26:64; Luke 22:69). He had therefore greater sin. Would Pilate follow his example, and condemn the Lord? If the high priest had greater sin, Pilate in such a case would not be guiltless.

These last words of Christ, the last that Pilate heard from His lips, till they shall meet again, when the Procurator will be before Him whom he was about to condemn to death, and then hear the Lord's judgment about him — these last words evidently impressed the governor. What prisoner had ever spoken in that way to him? No such words, we may be sure, fell from the lips of the two thieves, when their sentence was to be pronounced. But the words of Christ, "the greater sin," apparently struck home to that man of the world. Conscience may for a time be stifled, but conscience has a voice. Was Pilate's conscience aroused, warning him against injustice? It looked like it; for he sought, we read, to release his prisoner (John 19:12). But, unhappy man! the Jews, bent on the Lord's condemnation and execution, cried out, "If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend; whosoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar" (12). Conscious that his government had not been always upright, Pilate feared exposure to the emperor at the hands of the Jews. "The fear of man brings a snare" (Prov. 29:25). So he prepared to yield to their wishes. And now outside the Praetorium, at a place called in Aramaic Gabbatha, where the judgment seat was set, Pilate appeared again in public, and made one more, though feeble, attempt to escape condemning the Lord. "Behold your King!" he exclaimed. But the fresh sight of the Lord only evoked a fresh demand for His death. "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him," were cries which rent the air. Interposing anew with the question, "Shall I crucify your King?" the answer came from the chief priests, "We have no king but Caesar." The Lord rejected as their Messiah, the die was cast. Pilate pronounced sentence, and gave his prisoner to the Jews to crucify. So Antichrist some day must come (v. 43) to bring awful trouble on the nation, ere their King, their rejected Messiah, shall appear to deliver and to bless them (Zech. 12).

But Pilate is stricken again by such an accusation: for the legends of heathen superstition are revived at the suggestion, and he remembers, no doubt, that gods and sons of the gods had visited men, according to current beliefs, which he had perhaps too rashly discredited. Did He not carry Himself as if indeed divine? And there were other influences, as the dream of his wife, to make him tremble. He calls Him once more before him, and with an unaccustomed awe upon his spirit, asks Him, "Who art Thou?" He is not a weak man (save as the slave of his own lusts is weak); he is not easily moved to pity; nor is it pity now. He had mingled the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices, and could have trampled these Jews down now remorselessly, had he not been in hands for the moment stronger than his own. So the Lord plainly and compassionately tells him now. He would have had no authority at all against Him, had it not been given him from above. God, (though moved in a way far different from men,) God had delivered Him up; and, alas! the Jew had found in this his opportunity, misconceive it as he might, to pour out the enmity of his heart upon the very One of whom all the ages prophesied, and whom he had been prepared by the voice of heaven's messengers continuously uttered to expect. The Jew had then, indeed, a greater sin than Pilate's: the actual traitor was but the representative of his nation then.

It is on the repeated demands of the Jews that Pilate delivers Jesus into their hands — thoroughly guilty in so doing, for he had openly avowed His innocence, and had had his conscience decidedly touched and alarmed by the evident proofs there were that he had some extraordinary person before him. He will not show that he is touched, but he is so (John 19:8). The divine glory that pierced through the humiliation of Christ acts upon him, and gives force to the declaration of the Jews that Jesus had made Himself the Son of God. Pilate had scourged Him and given Him up to the insults of the soldiers; and here he would have stopped. Perhaps he hoped also that the Jews would be satisfied with this, and he presents Jesus to them crowned with thorns. Perhaps he hoped that their jealousy with regard to these national insults would induce them to ask for His deliverance. But, ruthlessly pursuing their malicious purpose, they cry out, "Crucify him, crucify him!" Pilate objects to this for himself, while giving them liberty to do it, saying that he finds no fault in Him. Upon this they plead their Jewish law. They had a law of their own, say they, and by this law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God. Pilate, already struck and exercised in mind, is the more alarmed; and, going back to the judgment hall again, questions Jesus. He makes no reply. The pride of Pilate awakes, and he asks if Jesus does not know that he has power to condemn or to release Him. The Lord maintains, in replying, the full dignity of His Person. Pilate had no power over Him, were it not the will of God — to this He submitted. It heightened the sin of those who had delivered Him up, to suppose that man could do anything against Him, were it not that the will of God was thus to be accomplished. The knowledge of His Person formed the measure of the sin committed against Him. The not perceiving it caused everything to be falsely judged, and, in the case of Judas, showed the most absolute moral blindness. He knew His Master's power. What was the meaning of delivering Him up to man, if it were not that His hour was come? But, this being the case, what was the betrayer's position?

Pilate, ill at ease from a mingling of fear and of a bad conscience, and at the same time full of a feverish anxiety to maintain his authority, and to throw upon the Jews the guilt of the condemnation of Jesus, presents Him again to the Jews to tell them that he finds no fault in Him. This excites the Jews to demand with loud cries His crucifixion. Pilate wishes them to do it, as he finds no fault in Him. Then the Jews, to whom the Romans had left their own laws (except the right of putting to death), insist that Jesus deserved death because He made Himself the Son of God, which increases Pilate's uneasiness.

296 He goes again into the judgment-hall and asks Jesus whence He was. Where was now the judge? Jesus does not answer him, Pilate having publicly owned that Jesus was not guilty. It was not a question of instructing Pilate; who, moreover, did not seek instruction, and who, in presence of the silence of Jesus, appeals to his authority and to his power over Him. Jesus declares to Pilate that he would have none if it had not been given him from above - for the crucifixion of the Saviour was in the counsels of God, and Jesus was now giving Himself to accomplish them; but that only increased the sin of Judas, who, witness of the divine power of Christ, had delivered Him up, as though there were none.

We may be sure that, had any sinful man — had any one of us — been in His place, men would have had the record of a very different word. We should either have denied the divine origin of the power in which Pilate boasted, in order to press upon him, according to our thoughts, the consequences of its use, or have admitted it, in order to put him aside contemptuously in affected superiority; and thus would have said, either," God never gave you the power to act thus;" or, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above, and therefore I have to do with God and have nothing to do with thee." But His word was, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin." In this perfectly wise answer responsibility is owned, though in the same breath with God's sovereignty, and yet each is perfectly in its place. It is as though He had said, God has allowed this — allowed them to have power, but they have used that power to have their own way, and it is manifest that it is their own way, and not God's, and so God marks the various steps in guilt.

There was far more active evil against the Lord in Judas than in Pilate, and so this led him, when God allowed them to act unrestrained, to deliver Him to Pilate. Pilate was, in one sense, only doing his duty in acting as a judge, condemning or releasing; but he was of course bound to act before God, and in subjection to Him in this. He very manifestly did the contrary, and hence his sin, which no doubt the Lord's word made his conscience aware of in some degree. Thus the possession of power as given of God, while it created responsibility, yet raised no question as to guilt; this was decided by the working of the will, which directed the use of the power, and thus the roots of the matter are brought to light.

They claim that He should die. Pilate goes again, and asks, "Whence art thou"; and when He did not answer, he says, "Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above; therefore he that delivereth me unto thee hath the greater sin. And from henceforth Pilate sought to release him." The Jews cry, to work on his fears, "Thou art not Caesar's friend." "Therefore he that delivereth me unto thee hath the greater sin." Pilate had no power against Him really at all. If he believed that He was the Son of God, and there was at any rate fear in his conscience, he was helping on the devil's work against the Son of God, and any way he saw that in the Jews it was hypocrisy and envy.