By Rev Charles Seet

Preached at / Published Life BPC 1045am Svc, 2010-11-07

Text: John 18:39

The title of today's message is 'conflict of authority.' This is actually a legal term which refers to a case where there is a difference of opinion regarding a point of law between courts of equal importance, which may result in a deadlock. However, in a broader sense, conflict of authority can also refer to any situation where two authorities come into conflict with each other. For example in American history there was an instance when civil and military authorities came into conflict. In 1867 a civil court had found a man named Cozzens guilty of fraud in connection with contracts for furnishing supplies to the War Departm%nt. However a military court had tried this man and found him not guilty, and so he could not be arrested by the civil authorities. In the end the civil court won by getting the U.S. President to authorize his arrest.

Another notable case of conflict of authority took place between the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire in the 11th century. King Henry, the ruler of the empire, claimed political authority to appoint bishops in the church and to depose the Pope. Pope Gregory on the other hand claimed religious authority to excommunicate the King and all the bishops whom the King had appointed. The King tried to settle the matter by going to Italy where Pope Gregory had taken refuge in a castle. In the end King Henry had to stand in the snow outside the castle for 3 days begging the Pope to lift the excommunication ban on him. The Pope finally acceded to his request but with certain conditions which Henry had to fulfill. Well, the Pope seemed to win in this conflict of authority. But soon after that King Henry conquered Rome, deposed the Pope and appointed a new one to replace him!

In the passage of Scripture which we will study this morning we will see a different kind of conflict of authority - the conflict between human authority and divine authority. 

In our last sermon on John's gospel we had seen how the High Priest and the Sanhedrin council had sent Jesus to be tried by the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate. Pilate had examined Jesus and declared that he found no fault in Him at all. But now we see that despite being acquitted by Roman Law, Jesus was not released. And a notorious criminal who was not acquitted was released instead. 

This strange outcome came about because Pilate followed a custom of pardoning and releasing a prisoner every year as a goodwill gesture to the Jews on their Passover Feast. He mistakenly assumed that the vast majority of Jews who were gathered there were not really in favour of having Jesus put to death. He may have based his assumption on the warm reception that multitudes of Jews had given to Jesus during His triumphal entry into Jerusalem just five days earlier. And so he thought of a way to convince the multitudes to ask for the release of Jesus. 

He gave them a choice between two prisoners to be released by him: They could choose Barabbas or Jesus. Pilate was very confident that they would choose to have Jesus released rather than Barabbas. Why? Because the choice was really a 'no-brainer'. It was quite easy for anyone to see which of the two deserved the death sentence. Barabbas was a notorious robber and according to Luke's gospel he was also guilty of sedition and murder. Jesus, on the other hand, had done nothing but good. The Jewish leaders had accused Him of claiming to be the King of the Jews, but Pilate had examined Him on this charge and found no fault in Him at all. 

And so when Pilate gave the multitudes a choice between releasing Barabbas and releasing Jesus for that Passover Feast, he fully expected them to choose Jesus. But to his great horror, they chose Barabbas to be released instead. And they demanded that Jesus be crucified. That's very strange. What happened? How could the people be so perverse as to favour a notorious criminal above a harmless person? Well unknown to Pilate, the people who were there had been influenced by the authorities to choose the wrong man.

According to Matthew 27:20 the chief priests and the elders of the Sanhedrin council were the ones who instigated the crowds to demand for Barabbas to be released rather than Jesus. While Pilate was examining Jesus privately inside the judgment hall earlier on, these Jewish leaders used their powerful influence and authority to work the ground. And as a result of their abuse of authority the multitudes were led into making a terrible choice. This brings out the awful results of

I. Corrupt Authority

Human history is filled with examples of corrupt authority. In every age there are opportunists who somehow are able to secure positions of authority for themselves and then use it to manipulate people to do their will. They know how to stir up the emotions of the people. They know how to rally much support from them, in order to create an impressive show of 'people power.' They know how to mobilise large crowds of people in protest marches, demonstrations, strikes, blockades and noisy rallies. If you were to watch any video clip of a pressure group protesting or demanding action you will see them shouting a simple slogan repeatedly and punching into the air. This is one of the worldly methods that corrupt authority may use to force their way through. We see it in v.6 of our text where they were shouting, 'Crucify Him, Crucify Him!' We see it again in v.15. This time they were shouting, 'Away with Him, Away with Him, Crucify Him!'

And this is not the only method that corrupt authority may use to exert their will. If using lawful means alone cannot achieve their goals, they have no qualms about resorting to unlawful means to do it. In earlier sermons we had seen how the chief priests and scribes had bribed Judas to betray Jesus to them. We had seen how they had conducted their trial of Jesus not in the daytime but at night and violated their laws on court proceedings. We had seen how Annas the high priest tried to force Jesus to incriminate Himself and how they accused Jesus falsely before Pilate. 

And in v.12 of our text we see them resorting to using blackmail to force Pilate to do their will. They said, 'If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.' They were threatening to report to Caesar that Pilate was disloyal to him because he released someone who had claimed to be a king. This means that they were willing to distort facts just to get what they wanted. They did not even mind disowning God as their king! We see this in v.15 where the chief priests brazenly said, 'We have no king but Caesar.'

But who were these people who said this? They were the spiritual leaders of the people. God had given the chief priests authority to guide the people to know God and worship Him. Instead of doing that they were now leading the Jews to reject their own Messiah and to have Him killed. The Jewish scribes in the Sanhedrin council were supposed to be experts on the Moral Law who were to guard it against being violated. Instead of doing that they were now leading the multitudes to reject Christ who is their Lawgiver and to choose the release of a lawbreaker - Barabbas who was both a murderer and a robber.

Besides that the chief priests were supposed to honour God with animal sacrifices that they alone were authorized to offer at the Temple. But now they were dishonouring God by pledging their honour to a pagan emperor. How awful it is to see corrupt authority!

The lesson we must learn from this is to be very careful when we are placed in any position of authority, as a boss, head of department, supervisor, principal, chairman, president, elder or pastor. Remember that all authority ultimately comes from God (Psalm 75:6-7 'For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.' If you are given any authority you are responsible to God for the way that you exercise that authority. Those who misuse or abuse their authority commit a grievous sin and will have to answer to God for this. 

Unfortunately, man's sinful nature makes it difficult for us to handle authority well. Most people are corrupted by power. We find it hard to remain humble and to deny self. We take liberties with our authority and use it to serve ourselves. A historian named Lord Acton once remarked that 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.' Because of this, you should always think carefully before accepting or assuming any position of authority. It may change you and destroy you. And worse still, it may destroy lives and cause untold misery and suffering to many others, just as Jesus suffered from the corrupt authority of the chief priests and scribes.

And so we have seen that many who are given authority are tempted to abuse it to get whatever they want. But now we are going to see that many who are given authority are also tempted to make compromises just to maintain it. Such was the case with Pilate the Roman procurator in Judea.

II. Compromised Authority

In verses 4 and 6 of our text we see that Pilate found no fault in Jesus at all. He should then have released Jesus immediately. That would have been the right thing to do. Why did he not do this? It was ultimately because he did not want to pay the price for doing right, for he was more concerned about holding on to his authority. And so he tried to secure the release of Jesus by making compromises with the Jews: At first, Pilate tried asking them to choose between Jesus and Barabbas. That didn't work - They chose Barabbas. Then he tried to compromise by reducing the punishment of Jesus from death to scourging. He thought that after seeing Jesus painfully scourged and humiliated, the Jews would be satisfied and not demand His death any more. That didn't work either.

Actually both of these compromises that Pilate made were fundamentally wrong from the very outset, as they imply that Jesus is guilty as charged. To release Jesus on the basis of the Passover custom would imply that Jesus had committed crimes that needed to be pardoned. But Jesus did not need any pardon. To commute His punishment to scourging also implies that Jesus was worthy to be punished in the first place. But this was completely nullified by Pilate's own judgment that there is no fault in Jesus. Therefore if Pilate had been a man of principle he should not have made either of these compromises. 

In addition to finding no fault in Jesus, Pilate later on found another reason why he should release Jesus. And that was a strong suspicion that Jesus was no ordinary person. This suspicion emerged when he heard the Jews saying in v.7 that Jesus had claimed to be the Son of God. The Jews said this to put more pressure on Pilate to issue a death sentence. But it actually had the opposite effect on him.

According to v.8 it made Pilate more afraid than before. It made him worry that he may be blamed for causing the death of someone of divine origin. This prompted him to have another private interview with Jesus to learn more about him. And what Jesus said at the end of v.11 made Pilate desperate to seek for His release. Jesus said, 'Therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.' Doesn't this imply that Pilate's failure to release Jesus would make him guilty of a great sin? 

You may remember that in our previous sermon we had seen Jesus telling Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world and that He had come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Pilate did not care about knowing the truth from Jesus. Nevertheless he was very worried now about the possible implications of sentencing a person of divine origin to death. It is not that Pilate now believed that Jesus is God, but it is more that he was superstitious and fearful of offending any of the Roman gods. As a pagan, Pilate had probably heard horror stories about how some Roman gods had made life hell for those who had offended them. 

And on top of all that, according to Matthew 27:19, Pilate's wife sent him an urgent message some time during the trial. And the message said, 'Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.' How would his wife know that Jesus is just or innocent? And why did she suffer many things in a dream because of Jesus? All this sounded very eerie to Pilate and it made him even more resolved to find a way to free Jesus. 

What was it then that stopped him from doing that? It was the threat of blackmail by the Jews. When they said to him in v.12, 'If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar' that immediately settled the matter for Pilate. The wrath of the Roman Emperor was more fearful to him than anything else, and at all costs he must not do anything to offend Caesar. 

Therefore he made his choice: Between offending some unknown divine power and offending his human emperor, Pilate chose not to offend his emperor. He wanted to remain in Caesar's good books so that he could retain his position of authority as the procurator of Judea. The rest of the passage shows Pilate finally yielding to the pressure that the Jews put on him. He brought Jesus out to them, sat down on his judgment se!t, and then sentenced an innocent man to death. Seven years later, Pilate lost his power. The Jews complained about him to Caesar on some other matters and he was called to Rome to answer their allegations. Dishearted by all these developments, he committed suicide.

Doesn't this demonstrate the awful results of compromised authority? Pilate compromised the Roman justice system, he compromised his own conscience, and he compromised his knowledge that Jesus must be of divine origin. Why? It was all because he chose short term gains instead of long term benefits.

There is an important lesson for us to learn from this: Please be careful not to make choices that are based on short term gains. You must look beyond what you can have in this world. What matters most is what eternity and heaven holds for you. Thomas Chalmers, the great mathematician, once said that he was not concerned about spiritual matters until he vividly saw life's two magnitudes - the shortness of time and the vastness of eternity. When this truth came home to him, he became a devoted disciple of Christ and a fine leader of the Free Church of Scotland.
Don't be deceived by the many attractive offers of the world. You may be offered a very high position. You may find excellent prospects of power, prosperity and popularity in this world. But at what cost? Is it really worth it? Jesus says, 'For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' (Mark 8:36-37) Please count the cost carefully, and live for things that are eternal.

Thus far our study of the text has shown us corrupt authority and compromised authority. Next, we will see 

III. Contravened Authority

Verse 40 mentions the release of Barabbas. He was justly sentenced to die as he had contravened the authority of the Law. He had been living a life of crime until the Law caught up with him convicted him of robbery, sedition and murder. The irony of it all is that Barabbas who deserved to die was granted pardon and release, while Jesus was put to death even though He had not contravened any authority.

We ought to see ourselves in Barabbas - We were deserving of death because we had contravened God's authority by our sins. But Jesus died instead of us to bear the punishment for our sins. And therefore we owe our life to Him and we ought to submit fully to His authority.

We are not told what happened to Barabbas after he was released. The Scripture is silent on this. There is a tradition that he followed Jesus to the cross, observed how Jesus died there in his place, and he became a changed man. But according to another tradition Barabbas went back to his old ways of contravening authority. And he was killed in another attempt to stir up rebellion against authority.

But we do know what happened to those Jewish leaders who had plotted the death of Jesus. They eventually lost their rights to lead the people. The authority of the chief priests and scribes was forcefully removed from them 40 years later when the Romans destroyed the Temple and the entire city of Jerusalem. This brought an end to Jewish autonomy and made the Roman Emperor the sole authority over Israel. Ironically it was the chief priests who had said in v.15, 'We have no king but Caesar.' And so because they chose to contravene God's authority, they eventually got what they deserved - complete subjection to Caesar!

May this remind us of the importance of submiting to divine authority. There is no use in resisting the authority that the Lord claims over your life. Give Him the rightful place in your life. If you have not made Christ your Saviour and Lord yet, please do so without further delay. Let Him rule on the throne of your heart. This brings us to the final point of this sermon, which is on:

IV. Christ's Authority

Christ is the only one who can handle authority well without any abuse of it. And when He comes again to claim this world as the King of kings and Lord of lords, we will see how excellent His rule on earth will be. The world will be transformed under His authority. There will be no corruption and no compromise within His righteous administration. 

And any rebellion or contravention of His authority will be dealt with justly and fairly. And no one will be able to keep Jesus from fulfilling His good purposes for this world. We see this truth reflected in our text. Here Jesus appears to be a pitiful helpless victim of all the sins that were perpetrated against Him. He suffered the cruel torture of being scourged with a Roman flagrum - leather thongs which had bits of metal and bone embedded in them - until his back was in shreds. He endured the mock coronation with the crown of thorns that the soldiers made for Him. They made fun of Him - hailing Him as King of the Jews and hurting Him with blows. 

But Jesus suffered all these things in silence. He refused to use His divine power to retaliate against them. He refused to exercise His right to call 12 legions of angels to come to His rescue. The Scripture says that, 'when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously' (1 Peter 2:23). Why did He do this? It was because our Lord Jesus had planned to go through all these things in order to save sinners. He had come into the world for the very purpose of facing the cruel injustice of the Jews and the humiliating treatment of the Romans which would culminate in His agonizing death on the cross.

You will notice that when Pilate tried to show off his authority to Jesus in v.10, saying, 'Knowest Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and I have power to release Thee?' The reply that Jesus gave left no doubt about Who really had power. He said, 'Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above.' (v.11) This was also the answer to Pilate's query in v.9 about where Jesus comes from. Jesus comes from above. His authority is therefore far above every authority on earth. And Jesus Himself would proclaim this truth after His resurrection in Matthew 28:18 'All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth'

And now the Lord Jesus demands with full authority your full submission to His rule in your life. He has redeemed you with His own precious blood and so He has every right to exercise authority over you. As your rightful king, He expects you now to do His will. As your king He commands you to honour Him in everything that you do. The question is: Will you give Him your loyal devotion and serve Him faithfully, or will you rebel against His authority by asserting your own independent authority? Is there a conflict of authority in your life?

• Prev
• Next