The Trial Before Pilate

185:2.1When Je­sus and his ac­cusers had gath­ered in front of Pi­late’s judg­ment hall, the Ro­man gov­er­nor came out and, ad­dress­ing the com­pany as­sem­bled, asked, “What ac­cu­sa­tion do you bring against this fel­low?” The Sad­ducees and coun­cilors who had taken it upon them­selves to put Je­sus out of the way had de­ter­mined to go be­fore Pi­late and ask for con­fir­ma­tion of the death sen­tence pro­nounced upon Je­sus, with­out vol­un­teer­ing any def­i­nite charge. There­fore did the spokesman for the San­hedrist court an­swer Pi­late: “If this man were not an evil­doer, we should not have de­liv­ered him up to you.”

185:2.2When Pi­late ob­served that they were re­luc­tant to state their charges against Je­sus, al­though he knew they had been all night en­gaged in de­lib­er­a­tions re­gard­ing his guilt, he an­swered them: “Since you have not agreed on any def­i­nite charges, why do you not take this man and pass judg­ment on him in ac­cor­dance with your own laws?”

185:2.3Then spoke the clerk of the San­hedrin court to Pi­late: “It is not law­ful for us to put any man to death, and this dis­turber of our na­tion is wor­thy to die for the things which he has said and done. There­fore have we come be­fore you for con­fir­ma­tion of this de­cree.”

185:2.4To come be­fore the Ro­man gov­er­nor with this at­tempt at eva­sion dis­closes both the ill-will and the ill-hu­mor of the San­hedrists to­ward Je­sus as well as their lack of re­spect for the fair­ness, honor, and dig­nity of Pi­late. What ef­fron­tery for these sub­ject cit­i­zens to ap­pear be­fore their provin­cial gov­er­nor ask­ing for a de­cree of ex­e­cu­tion against a man be­fore af­ford­ing him a fair trial and with­out even pre­fer­ring def­i­nite crim­i­nal charges against him!

185:2.5Pi­late knew some­thing of Je­sus’ work among the Jews, and he sur­mised that the charges which might be brought against him had to do with in­fringe­ments of the Jew­ish ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal laws; there­fore he sought to re­fer the case back to their own tri­bu­nal. Again, Pi­late took de­light in mak­ing them pub­licly con­fess that they were pow­er­less to pro­nounce and ex­e­cute the death sen­tence upon even one of their own race whom they had come to de­spise with a bit­ter and en­vi­ous ha­tred.

185:2.6It was a few hours pre­vi­ously, shortly be­fore mid­night and af­ter he had granted per­mis­sion to use Ro­man sol­diers in ef­fect­ing the se­cret ar­rest of Je­sus, that Pi­late had heard fur­ther con­cern­ing Je­sus and his teach­ing from his wife, Clau­dia, who was a par­tial con­vert to Ju­daism, and who later on be­came a full-fledged be­liever in Je­sus’ gospel.

185:2.7Pi­late would have liked to post­pone this hear­ing, but he saw the Jew­ish lead­ers were de­ter­mined to pro­ceed with the case. He knew that this was not only the forenoon of prepa­ra­tion for the Pass­over, but that this day, be­ing Fri­day, was also the prepa­ra­tion day for the Jew­ish Sab­bath of rest and wor­ship.

185:2.8Pi­late, be­ing keenly sen­si­tive to the dis­re­spect­ful man­ner of the ap­proach of these Jews, was not will­ing to com­ply with their de­mands that Je­sus be sen­tenced to death with­out a trial. When, there­fore, he had waited a few mo­ments for them to pre­sent their charges against the pris­oner, he turned to them and said: “I will not sen­tence this man to death with­out a trial; nei­ther will I con­sent to ex­am­ine him un­til you have pre­sented your charges against him in writ­ing.”

185:2.9When the high priest and the oth­ers heard Pi­late say this, they sig­naled to the clerk of the court, who then handed to Pi­late the writ­ten charges against Je­sus. And these charges were:

185:2.10“We find in the San­hedrist tri­bu­nal that this man is an evil­doer and a dis­turber of our na­tion in that he is guilty of:

185:2.11“1. Per­vert­ing our na­tion and stir­ring up our peo­ple to re­bel­lion.

185:2.12“2. For­bid­ding the peo­ple to pay trib­ute to Cae­sar.

185:2.13“3. Call­ing him­self the king of the Jews and teach­ing the found­ing of a new king­dom.”

185:2.14Je­sus had not been reg­u­larly tried nor legally con­victed on any of these charges. He did not even hear these charges when first stated, but Pi­late had him brought from the prae­to­rium, where he was in the keep­ing of the guards, and he in­sisted that these charges be re­peated in Je­sus’ hear­ing.

185:2.15When Je­sus heard these ac­cu­sa­tions, he well knew that he had not been heard on these mat­ters be­fore the Jew­ish court, and so did John Zeb­e­dee and his ac­cusers, but he made no re­ply to their false charges. Even when Pi­late bade him an­swer his ac­cusers, he opened not his mouth. Pi­late was so as­ton­ished at the un­fair­ness of the whole pro­ceed­ing and so im­pressed by Je­sus’ silent and mas­terly bear­ing that he de­cided to take the pris­oner in­side the hall and ex­am­ine him pri­vately.

185:2.16Pi­late was con­fused in mind, fear­ful of the Jews in his heart, and might­ily stirred in his spirit by the spec­ta­cle of Je­sus’ stand­ing there in majesty be­fore his blood­thirsty ac­cusers and gaz­ing down on them, not in silent con­tempt, but with an ex­pres­sion of gen­uine pity and sor­row­ful af­fec­tion.