By Rev Charles Seet

Preached at / Published Life BPC 1045am Svc, 2010-10-24

Text: John 18:28-38

In the legal system, when an accused person is proven not guilty of any charges made by the prosecution, he is said to be acquitted on those charges. This does happen in our courts occasionally. In May this year, a man who had been charged with making a prank call that bombs would explode at the Marina Bay Sands casino was acquitted as the charge was withdrawn. Two months later, a senior immigration officer at ICA successfully appealed against his conviction for accepting bribes to extend the social visit passes of foreigners. He was acquitted by the High Court of all 4 charges that were made against him. And just 3 weeks ago a former CEO in a very high profile court case was granted a discharge amounting to an acquittal on the 6 remaining charges against him, although he had been convicted on 4 charges and had spent 4 months behind bars. In all these cases, the ones who were acquitted were released and they must have been greatly relieved to have their names cleared of all accusations.

This morning we will study a passage of Scripture which describes an acquittal in a court case that took place nearly 2,000 years ago. But what was most strange and unusual about this acquittal is that it did not bring about the release of the One who was justly acquitted of all charges. Instead of being released, He was put to death with the most excruciating form of punishment ever devised by man. However, this death turned out to be the most crucial event in all history with an enduring impact on millions of lives even until today. 

John 18:28-38 describes the trial that our Lord Jesus faced before Pontius Pilate, who was the Roman procurator or governor of Judea at that time. But this was not His first trial. You may recall that in our last sermon on John's Gospel we had seen how Jesus was tried by Annas, the High Priest, after Jesus was arrested at the Garden of Gethsemane. We had seen how terribly unjust this trial was. Trials were not supposed to be conducted at night but this one was. A clear charge or accusation was supposed to be brought before anyone could be tried, but in this case Jesus was tried in order to find a charge that could be used against Him. In any trial there had to be at least two credible witnesses to testify against the accused, but in this case there were none. Despite violating so many laws in conducting the trial the High Priest failed to convict Jesus of any crime. 

So Annas sent Him over to his son-in-law, Caiaphas to face another trial, this time before the whole Jewish Sanhedrin council. And it was at this trial that they finally found a plausible charge against Jesus. Caiaphas asked Jesus to answer under oath whether He was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus answered affirmatively because that is who He really is. But they immediately charged Him with blasphemy and condemned Him to death. These details of the trial by Caiaphas are not in John's Gospel but are found in the Gospels of Matthew (26:59-66) and Mark (14:55-64). 

Actually this was another clear violation of proper procedure for such cases. According to their laws, the Sanhedrin council was not supposed to condemn anyone to death on the same day as his conviction. They were supposed to wait for 2 days and reconvene on the third day to review their decision. Only then could they issue a death sentence and execute him. In the meantime, the council members were supposed to fast and pray about the case. When they returned to court on the third day they were supposed to take another vote to confirm their decision. Those who had voted against the death sentence at first were not allowed to change their vote. Only those who had voted in favour of the death sentence at first could reverse their vote. If they found that the majority was not in favour of the sentence then the accused would be released. But if the majority was in favour, he was delivered for execution immediately. All these measures were put in place in the Jewish legal system to ensure that that no one was sentenced to death unjustly.

Unfortunately, none of these measures were observed during the trial of Jesus. Everything was done in a very hurried and careless manner, with no time given for fasting, praying or review - All because the high priests and the rest of the Jewish leaders did not want anyone or anything to stop them from putting Jesus to death. All this provides us with the background for what we will see in our text now.

I. The Prosecutors' Unreasonable Accusations (vv.28-32)

Let us look at verses 28-29 'Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What accusation bring ye against this man?' It was around 6-7 am in the morning when this took place. The Jews led Jesus to the 'hall of judgment' or Praetorium, which was the Roman governor's headquarters in Jerusalem. Their purpose was to get Pontius Pilate to execute Jesus. 

One may ask, 'Why did they not execute Jesus on their own? Why did the Jews ask the Roman governor to do it for them?' After all, according to the Old Testament Law, death by stoning was the punishment prescribed for blasphemy (cf. Leviticus 24:16). In fact later on, Stephen - the first martyr of the church - was stoned to death by the Jews on false charges of blasphemy just after he was brought before the same Sanhedrin Council. Why then was Jesus not stoned to death instantly like Stephen? 

There are 3 reasons. Firstly, Israel was under Roman rule at that time, and Roman law prohibited the Jews from carrying out their own executions. Any criminal who was worthy of death had to be brought by them to the Roman governor, who would try him according to Roman laws, and if found guilty he would be executed by Roman soldiers. (Incidentally, this was how the apostle Paul was saved from being killed by the Jews later on in Acts 21:27-34.) The Jews greatly resented this prohibition because blasphemy was never recognized by the Romans as a crime worthy of death. So there were times when they brazenly flouted the prohibition, as in the case of Stephen, and chose to face the consequences for their actions. 

But strangely they did not do this when it came to executing Jesus on the charge of blasphemy. It seems that for His case they willingly complied with Roman law and brought Him to be tried by Pontius Pilate. Why was this so? It was probably because they wanted a way to execute Jesus which no one would dare to oppose. This is the second reason why Jesus was not stoned to death in accordance to Jewish Law. The Jews were afraid that they may be stopped by the multitudes who were in Jerusalem for the Passover. These multitudes of people had witnessed the miracles of Jesus and had welcomed Him with shouts of 'Hosanna' only a few days earlier during His triumphal entry into the city. If they now saw Jesus being led out of the city to be stoned by their own Jewish leaders, they would certainly rise up to stop the execution.

But no one would dare to stop the execution of Jesus if the Romans were the ones who carried it out. Roman soldiers were fully armed and too formidable to oppose. And the means of execution the Romans used was not stoning but crucifixion, where the victim was brutally nailed to a wooden cross and died a slow and agonizing death. It was precisely this form of death that Jesus would die according to all the prophecies that had been made before about His death. This brings us to the third and most important reason why Jesus was not stoned to death. 

Ultimately, it was God who used the actions of the Jews to cause Jesus to be crucified instead of being stoned to death. This was done because the profuse shedding of blood that took place in His crucifixion made it conform to the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament. The fact that no bones were broken during crucifixion reminds us of the Passover lamb. None of the lamb's bones were to be broken (Exodus 12:46). If Jesus had been stoned instead of crucified, His bones would definitely have been broken. If He had been stoned He would also not have suffered as much agony to pay the full price for the sins of the world. Death by stoning was too quick - a strong blow to the head would put the victim out of misery.

Besides this, Jesus Himself had foretold the kind of death He would die - and it was definitely not by stoning. Let us look at two verses from John's Gospel. John 3:14 'And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.' This refers to the serpent of brass that God commanded Moses to make and hang on a tall pole during a plague when the Israelites were bitten by fiery serpents. Anyone who looked at the brass serpent that was lifted up for all to see would be healed. The other passage where Jesus predicted His own death is John 12:32-33 'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die.' This lifting up from the earth aptly describes the Roman form of execution which is by crucifixion. And this helps us now to understand v.31 of our text where the Jews told Pilate, 'It is not lawful for us to put any man to death,' and v.32 which tells us that this fulfilled what Jesus had said earlier about the kind of death He would die - not by stoning, but by crucifixion.

One application of this is the comfort of knowing that all circumstances of our life are in God's hands. Nothing ever happens to us by chance. Here we have just seen how the Lord Jesus had been so horribly victimized by the evil designs of His enemies that He was given no fair trial and was executed by the Romans with a cruel death. Nothing could have been worse than that. And yet every detail of His death fulfilled an important purpose in God's plan, and ultimately wrought our salvation. In the same way every detail of the trials we endure in life are ordered by the Lord to fulfill His plan for us. God uses them to test us, change us, and chastise us. May our hearts always be comforted by this truth. However let us also be careful in the midst of these trials, not to be defiled by sin. In extreme circumstances people are often tempted to take the easy way out in order to get out of trouble (e.g. Peter denied Christ 3 times), or to compel others to do their will. This is exactly what we see the Jews doing in v.30 when they brought Jesus to Pilate.

When Pilate asked them what accusation they had against Jesus, they answered, 'If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee.' The word malefactor means 'evildoer' or 'criminal'. What the Jews wanted Pilate to do was to confirm their sentence on Jesus without any trial. They had already judged and sentenced Him to death and so Pilate only has to carry out the execution for them. They did not reveal their actual accusation against Jesus, because as we had seen earlier, Roman law did not recognize blasphemy as a crime worthy of death.

But Pilate was not intimidated at all by these presumptuous Jews. Since they refused to tell him their accusation against Jesus, he told them to go and carry out their own trial of Jesus. Then they revealed that they wanted Jesus to be put to death but were prohibited from doing this by Roman Law. And the question that Pilate asked Jesus in v.33 shows that they did bring up at least one false accusation against Jesus - that He had claimed to be the King of the Jews. While John is silent about the actual accusations the Jews brought up, Luke's gospel provides them for us. Let us turn to Luke 23:1-2 'And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.'

There are 3 accusations here but all of them are false. Jesus did not pervert or corrupt the nation of Israel. He brought life to it. In John 10:10 He said, 'The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.' Jesus never forbade anyone to pay taxes to the Roman government. In fact he encouraged it. Matthew 22:21 He said, 'Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.' Jesus never made any claim to be the king of the Jews. It was always others acknowledged Him as king especially during His triumphal entry into Jerusalem (cf. John 1:49; 12:13), but He Himself never claimed to be their king. In fact in John 6:15 when Jesus had fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes and the people tried to make Him their king, He refused and went away from them.

Actually, these accusations were specially crafted just to convince Pilate that Jesus had violated the Roman law and thus He should be sentenced to death. But by making such false accusations, the Jews had defiled themselves with sin. They were guilty of breaking the 9th commandment because they bore false witness. They were also guilty of breaking the 6th commandment because they intended to kill an innocent man. 

And the strange thing is that while these Jews did not care about being defiled with such vile sins like deceit and murder, they took great pains not to be defiled with ceremonial uncleanness. According to v.28 they did not enter into the judgment hall 'lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover.' To the Jews, entering the house of a Gentile would defile them. For instance, in Acts 10 the Apostle Peter would never have entered the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, if God had not instructed him to do so through a vision (Acts 10:28). This shows tha4 ceremonial defilement should not be of any concern to God's people. The defilement we should be most concerned about is moral defilement. 

There is an important lesson here for all of us. We must be careful not to be hypocritical like these Jews who kept themselves so pure outwardly but were not pure inwardly. You may be very 'pure' outwardly - attending church very regularly, being well-versed in Bible knowledge, able to quote Scripture verses flawlessly, and even serving very actively in some church ministry. But what is the use ofkall this if you are not pure inwardly - if you despise others or have an unforgiving spirit toward them, or if you are filled with pride, or if your motives are mostly selfish? Dearly beloved, the Lord does not look at what's outside, but at what's inside. Let us therefore keep ourselves pure inwardly - that's what matters to Him. And most importantly let us submit to His Lordship in our lives. He must always take first place in our hearts. This is the point that we learn from the next part of our text. 

II. The Prisoner's Unrivalled Admissions (vv.33-37)

In vv.33 Pilate began his trial of Jesus by asking Him, 'Art thou the King of the Jews?' In the exchange that followed between them, Jesus admitted that He is a king, but not the kind of king that Pilate imagined. Pilate was a governor in the service of the Roman Emperor, Tiberius Caesar. Thus he understood the term 'king' to be a person with great political power ruling over a people who were subdued by him. Hence Pilate's greatest concern was that if Jesus was a king, He may provoke an armed insurrection of Jews against the Romans. This of course would compel Pilate to sentence Jesus to death.

But Jesus made it clear to him that this was not His kind of kingship. Let us learn what kind of king Jesus is by looking now at v.36 'My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.'

Here Jesus makes it clear that His kingdom is not political but spiritual. It does not grow by conquest but by conversion. And hence it would not pose any threat to the Roman Empire. In fact throughout history, Christ's kingdom has been growing and thriving within many different kingdoms and nations without interfering with the political power of their governments. There are however some dark moments in history when Christianity was politicized by wicked men for their own selfish ends - e.g. the Crusades of the 11th to 13th centuries which caused much pain, bloodshed and death. This goes completely against to what Jesus said in v.36 'My kingdom is not of this world.'

Let us understand this truth: We are not called to defend Christ's Kingdom by using swords, spears, guns or terrorist bomb attacks. Neither are we called to expand His Kingdom by building a great empire of wealth or by launching lucrative business ventures as some churches and Christian organizations have done. These are not the means or weapons that we must use as 2 Corinthians 10:4 tells us, 'For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.' What are these weapons of our warfare? They are revealed in the latter part of v.37 where Jesus said, 'To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.'

This was the reply Jesus gave when Pilate asked Him whether He was a king. It emphasized again that He is a different kind of king from what Pilate imagined. While earthly kings rule their subjects by the power of force, Jesus rules His subjects by the power of the truth - the eternal truth of God that every man, woman and child on earth needs to know. In John 8:32 Jesus says, 'Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'

Perhaps there is someone here this morning who is in dire need of the truth. As long as you remain outside Christ, you cannot have this truth that makes you free. You will only continue to dwell in the darkness of ignorance and sin. Dear friends, the truth that can make you free is found only in Jesus Christ. Come to Him and make Him your king. Hear His voice calling you now. He says, 'All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.' (John 6:37) 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.' (Matthew 11:28-29)

Will you respond to His voice? Or will you turn away from the truth that is confronting you now? This unfortunately was what Pilate did. According to v.38 he said, 'What is truth?' and then he left promptly. This action shows how indifferent Pilate was to the truth. If he was really sincere to know the truth he would have stayed on to listen to Christ's answer to the question, 'What is truth?' But it was obviously a cynical and scornful question. Pilate refused to learn and to be 'of the truth'. 

What a great pity! By doing this he refused not only the truth from Jesus, but also the love of Jesus. You will notice that throughout the whole trial, there was no one else in the judgment hall but Jesus and Pilate. It turned out to be a private and personal encounter between them because the Jews had opted to stay outside. Pilate's objective for this encounter was to find some fault that would enable him to sentence Jesus to death. But Jesus' objective was to reveal the truth that could save Pilate from eternal death. Can you see how wonderful and merciful our Lord was here? Even during His trial He was much more interested in reaching the heart of Pilate and bringing the truth home to him than in defending Himself from charges the Jews had made against Him. Who else but our Lord Jesus would ever do a loving thing like this? And who else but Jesus would go on willingly from that judgment hall to Calvary to lay down His life on the cross for our sins? 

Dear friends, when Jesus confronts you with His truth and love, please don't turn away from Him and leave. Don't avoid the truth. Don't pretend that it doesn't exist or think that the truth cannot be determined with any certainty. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). You must come and make Him your King right now. Submit yourself fully to His rule in your life and you will find that Jesus is truly the best King that anyone could ever have. 

All earthly kings and rulers have their faults and weaknesses. This is because they are all sinners like us. Some of them are too far removed from their subjects to be able to understand them and sympathise with their problems. Some kings are too obsessed with their own glory and power to be able to care for the needs of their people. Some would even exploit the people for their own selfish ends. But Jesus is not like them at all. Even though He is the King and ruler of all, He came right down to our level and took our frail humanity on Himself. He understands our needs, our problems and every temptation we face. According to Hebrews 4:15, He 'was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.' Jesus is more than qualified to be our king because He is without sin - there is absolutely no fault in Him. This brings us now to the final part of our text.

III. The Procurator's Unreserved Acquittal (v.38)

After Pilate went out from the judgment hall he gave the Jews his verdict on Jesus in v.38: 'I find in Him no fault at all.' This statement was his unreserved acquittal of Jesus. Pilate had personally questioned Him and come to this firm conclusion: As far as Roman law is concerned, Jesus has done nothing worthy of being put to death. He was certainly not the malefactor that the Jews had alleged Him to be. All the charges they had brought against Him were therefore dismissed. 

If you read the account of the events which took place after this in John's Gospel as well as Luke's Gospel you will see that Pilate repeated the same verdict another 5 times 'I find no fault in Him.' (John 19:4,6; Luke 23:4,14,22). For instance, listen to what Pilate said to the chief priests and rulers of the Jews in Luke 23:14 'Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him.'

And yet, despite this clear acquittal, Pilate did not release Jesus and allow Him to go free. Why? Because Pilate was not only a judge, but a shrewd politician, seeking at all costs to retain his high position as the Roman Procurator of Judea. In the next sermon we will see how he gave in to the demands of the Jews and sent Jesus to die on the cross. He acted contrary to the truth of the acquittal just to stay in power. But Pilate lost his power 7 years later. The Jews complained about him to Caesar and he was called to Rome to answer their allegations. Dishearted by all these developments, Pilate committed suicide. The sad ending of his life shows how dangerous it is to compromise principles for the sake of staying in power. He who had found no fault in Jesus, will stand before Jesus one day to be condemned for his own faults and sins. 

Dearly beloved, please do not make the same mistake as Pilate. When you are confronted by the truth, don't turn away from it, or worse still, don't act in a manner that is contrary to it. Remember that you will stand before God one day to be judged by Him. Make sure that He will be able to acquit you and say to you, 'I find no fault in you, because all your faults have been paid for in full by My faultless Son!'

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