The Trial Before Pilate

185:5.1When the guards had brought Je­sus back to Pi­late, he went out on the front steps of the prae­to­rium, where his judg­ment seat had been placed, and call­ing to­gether the chief priests and San­hedrists, said to them: “You brought this man be­fore me with charges that he per­verts the peo­ple, for­bids the pay­ment of taxes, and claims to be king of the Jews. I have ex­am­ined him and fail to find him guilty of these charges. In fact, I find no fault in him. Then I sent him to Herod, and the tetrarch must have reached the same con­clu­sion since he has sent him back to us. Cer­tainly, noth­ing wor­thy of death has been done by this man. If you still think he needs to be dis­ci­plined, I am will­ing to chas­tise him be­fore I re­lease him.”

185:5.2Just as the Jews were about to en­gage in shout­ing their protests against the re­lease of Je­sus, a vast crowd came march­ing up to the prae­to­rium for the pur­pose of ask­ing Pi­late for the re­lease of a pris­oner in honor of the Pass­over feast. For some time it had been the cus­tom of the Ro­man gov­er­nors to al­low the pop­u­lace to choose some im­pris­oned or con­demned man for par­don at the time of the Pass­over. And now that this crowd had come be­fore him to ask for the re­lease of a pris­oner, and since Je­sus had so re­cently been in great fa­vor with the mul­ti­tudes, it oc­curred to Pi­late that he might pos­si­bly ex­tri­cate him­self from his predica­ment by propos­ing to this group that, since Je­sus was now a pris­oner be­fore his judg­ment seat, he re­lease to them this man of Gal­i­lee as the to­ken of Pass­over good will.

185:5.3As the crowd surged up on the steps of the build­ing, Pi­late heard them call­ing out the name of one Barab­bas. Barab­bas was a noted po­lit­i­cal ag­i­ta­tor and mur­der­ous rob­ber, the son of a priest, who had re­cently been ap­pre­hended in the act of rob­bery and mur­der on the Jeri­cho road. This man was un­der sen­tence to die as soon as the Pass­over fes­tiv­i­ties were over.

185:5.4Pi­late stood up and ex­plained to the crowd that Je­sus had been brought to him by the chief priests, who sought to have him put to death on cer­tain charges, and that he did not think the man was wor­thy of death. Said Pi­late: “Which, there­fore, would you pre­fer that I re­lease to you, this Barab­bas, the mur­derer, or this Je­sus of Gal­i­lee?” And when Pi­late had thus spo­ken, the chief priests and the San­hedrin coun­cilors all shouted at the top of their voices, “Barab­bas, Barab­bas!” And when the peo­ple saw that the chief priests were minded to have Je­sus put to death, they quickly joined in the clamor for his life while they loudly shouted for the re­lease of Barab­bas.

185:5.5A few days be­fore this the mul­ti­tude had stood in awe of Je­sus, but the mob did not look up to one who, hav­ing claimed to be the Son of God, now found him­self in the cus­tody of the chief priests and the rulers and on trial be­fore Pi­late for his life. Je­sus could be a hero in the eyes of the pop­u­lace when he was driv­ing the money-chang­ers and the traders out of the tem­ple, but not when he was a non­re­sist­ing pris­oner in the hands of his en­e­mies and on trial for his life.

185:5.6Pi­late was an­gered at the sight of the chief priests clam­or­ing for the par­don of a no­to­ri­ous mur­derer while they shouted for the blood of Je­sus. He saw their mal­ice and ha­tred and per­ceived their prej­u­dice and envy. There­fore he said to them: “How could you choose the life of a mur­derer in pref­er­ence to this man’s whose worst crime is that he fig­u­ra­tively calls him­self the king of the Jews?” But this was not a wise state­ment for Pi­late to make. The Jews were a proud peo­ple, now sub­ject to the Ro­man po­lit­i­cal yoke but hop­ing for the com­ing of a Mes­siah who would de­liver them from gen­tile bond­age with a great show of power and glory. They re­sented, more than Pi­late could know, the in­ti­ma­tion that this meek-man­nered teacher of strange doc­trines, now un­der ar­rest and charged with crimes wor­thy of death, should be re­ferred to as “the king of the Jews.” They looked upon such a re­mark as an in­sult to ev­ery­thing which they held sa­cred and hon­or­able in their na­tional ex­is­tence, and there­fore did they all let loose their mighty shouts for Barab­bas’s re­lease and Je­sus’ death.

185:5.7Pi­late knew Je­sus was in­no­cent of the charges brought against him, and had he been a just and coura­geous judge, he would have ac­quit­ted him and turned him loose. But he was afraid to defy these an­gry Jews, and while he hes­i­tated to do his duty, a mes­sen­ger came up and pre­sented him with a sealed mes­sage from his wife, Clau­dia.

185:5.8Pi­late in­di­cated to those as­sem­bled be­fore him that he wished to read the com­mu­ni­ca­tion which he had just re­ceived be­fore he pro­ceeded fur­ther with the mat­ter be­fore him. When Pi­late opened this let­ter from his wife, he read: “I pray you have noth­ing to do with this in­no­cent and just man whom they call Je­sus. I have suf­fered many things in a dream this night be­cause of him.” This note from Clau­dia not only greatly up­set Pi­late and thereby de­layed the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of this mat­ter, but it un­for­tu­nately also pro­vided con­sid­er­able time in which the Jew­ish rulers freely cir­cu­lated among the crowd and urged the peo­ple to call for the re­lease of Barab­bas and to clamor for the cru­ci­fix­ion of Je­sus.

185:5.9Fi­nally, Pi­late ad­dressed him­self once more to the so­lu­tion of the prob­lem which con­fronted him, by ask­ing the mixed as­sem­bly of Jew­ish rulers and the par­don-seek­ing crowd, “What shall I do with him who is called the king of the Jews?” And they all shouted with one ac­cord, “Cru­cify him! Cru­cify him!” The una­nim­ity of this de­mand from the mixed mul­ti­tude star­tled and alarmed Pi­late, the un­just and fear-rid­den judge.

185:5.10Then once more Pi­late said: “Why would you cru­cify this man? What evil has he done? Who will come for­ward to tes­tify against him?” But when they heard Pi­late speak in de­fense of Je­sus, they only cried out all the more, “Cru­cify him! Cru­cify him!”

185:5.11Then again Pi­late ap­pealed to them re­gard­ing the re­lease of the Pass­over pris­oner, say­ing: “Once more I ask you, which of these pris­on­ers shall I re­lease to you at this, your Pass­over time?” And again the crowd shouted, “Give us Barab­bas!”

185:5.12Then said Pi­late: “If I re­lease the mur­derer, Barab­bas, what shall I do with Je­sus?” And once more the mul­ti­tude shouted in uni­son, “Cru­cify him! Cru­cify him!”

185:5.13Pi­late was ter­ror­ized by the in­sis­tent clamor of the mob, act­ing un­der the di­rect lead­er­ship of the chief priests and the coun­cilors of the San­hedrin; nev­er­the­less, he de­cided upon at least one more at­tempt to ap­pease the crowd and save Je­sus.