The Trial Before Pilate

185:7.1As Pi­late, trem­bling with fear­ful emo­tion, sat down by the side of Je­sus, he in­quired: “Where do you come from? Re­ally, who are you? What is this they say, that you are the Son of God?”

185:7.2But Je­sus could hardly an­swer such ques­tions when asked by a man-fear­ing, weak, and vac­il­lat­ing judge who was so un­just as to sub­ject him to flog­ging even when he had de­clared him in­no­cent of all crime, and be­fore he had been duly sen­tenced to die. Je­sus looked Pi­late straight in the face, but he did not an­swer him. Then said Pi­late: “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not re­al­ize that I still have power to re­lease you or to cru­cify you?” Then said Je­sus: “You could have no power over me ex­cept it were per­mit­ted from above. You could ex­er­cise no au­thor­ity over the Son of Man un­less the Fa­ther in heaven al­lowed it. But you are not so guilty since you are ig­no­rant of the gospel. He who be­trayed me and he who de­liv­ered me to you, they have the greater sin.”

185:7.3This last talk with Je­sus thor­oughly fright­ened Pi­late. This moral cow­ard and ju­di­cial weak­ling now la­bored un­der the dou­ble weight of the su­per­sti­tious fear of Je­sus and mor­tal dread of the Jew­ish lead­ers.

185:7.4Again Pi­late ap­peared be­fore the crowd, say­ing: “I am cer­tain this man is only a re­li­gious of­fender. You should take him and judge him by your law. Why should you ex­pect that I would con­sent to his death be­cause he has clashed with your tra­di­tions?”

185:7.5Pi­late was just about ready to re­lease Je­sus when Cai­a­phas, the high priest, ap­proached the cow­ardly Ro­man judge and, shak­ing an aveng­ing fin­ger in Pi­late’s face, said with an­gry words which the en­tire mul­ti­tude could hear: “If you re­lease this man, you are not Cae­sar’s friend, and I will see that the em­peror knows all.” This pub­lic threat was too much for Pi­late. Fear for his per­sonal for­tunes now ec­lipsed all other con­sid­er­a­tions, and the cow­ardly gov­er­nor or­dered Je­sus brought out be­fore the judg­ment seat. As the Mas­ter stood there be­fore them, he pointed to him and taunt­ingly said, “Be­hold your king.” And the Jews an­swered, “Away with him. Cru­cify him!” And then Pi­late said, with much irony and sar­casm, “Shall I cru­cify your king?” And the Jews an­swered, “Yes, cru­cify him! We have no king but Cae­sar.” And then did Pi­late re­al­ize that there was no hope of sav­ing Je­sus since he was un­will­ing to defy the Jews.