The Gospel of John

The Civil Trial II

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 65- 70

Genre:

Track: 063

Dictation Name: RR197AH65

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. Thus sayeth the Lord ye will seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Jesus said blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. Let us pray.

Our Father we thank Thee that Thou hast made known Thy love and thy grace towards us through Jesus Christ Thine Son our Savoir. We praise Thee for Thy grace unto us, for Thy mercy and for Thy blessings and we pray that day after day we may serve Thee with all our heart, mind and being. We thank Thee that our times are in Thy hands, give us grace day by day to commit ourselves unto Thee, to trust in Thee and to know that all Thy ways are righteous and all together holy. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is John 19:1-16. Our subject: The Civil Trial, part two. The Civil Trial, part two. John 19:1-16.

“Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.

2 And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe,

3 And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands.

4 Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.

5 Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!

6 When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.

7 The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.

8 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid;

9 And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.

10 Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?

11 Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.

12 And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.

13 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.

14 And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!

15 But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.

16 Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.”

The religious leaders were determined to compel Pilate to crucify Jesus, however unjustly. Pilate on the other hand knew that Judea was a troublesome area for the emperor and he was determined not to be ruled by the Judeans. More than one Roman official had suffered badly from being in Judea. It was not a favored position. The Judean attitude was that any abuse of one of their people was offensive to all of them so Pilate decided to make Jesus an object of their pity. So he was turned over to the soldiers, He was scourged which meant that He was whipped with a cat o’ nine tails, metal studded whips which very quickly exposed the back bone and left a man a weakened bloody mess. This is why Christ died quickly on the cross, in a few hours, unlike the two others who were crucified who had to be killed because the next day was the Passover. A crown of thorns was pressed unto His head, He was covered with a purple royal robe in mockery and he was struck again and again by the soldiers and became what Pilate hoped was an object of pity with a blood streaked face and body. Jesus was then presented to the chief priests and officers by Pilate with the statement I find no fault in Him and behold the man. Instead of arousing pity the leaders and officers cried out ‘crucify him, crucify him’. Pilate in disgust told them to take Jesus and crucify Him but he himself found no fault in Him.

The answer of the Jewish leaders was we have a law and by our law He ought to die because He made Himself the son of God. At this Pilate who knew Jesus from reports about Him by his agents and knew that He was a miracle worker became more afraid. He did not want to tangle with the supernatural. Jesus was again inside in the judgment hall so Pilate went to him to ask whence art thou. But Jesus did not answer. Pilate was now irritated with Jesus, he was trying to save this man’s life but yet he was given no answer? He said angrily:

“Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?”

Pilate was saying I have total power over you so you had better answer me. But Jesus knew that Pilate moved in fear of Rome’s disapproval and in fear of a negative report to Rome by the Jewish leaders. Jesus referred neither to Rome’s power nor to that of the Sanhedrin but to God’s power.

“Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.”

Now this was the startling answer. Jesus says you’re in sin for what you’re doing, for surrendering to evil, but they who delivered me have the greater sin. Jesus, the one about to be executed, had put His accusers and the judge in the dock instead. Pilate knew Jesus was right and from thenceforth Pilate sought to release Him, we are told.

At this the leaders cried out:

“If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.”

This charge placed Pilate in a difficult position. All they had to do was report to Rome your governor has released a man who made himself king and was going to create a revolution and it would have been all over for Pilate. How could he free a man whose kingship claim was possibly a threat to Caesar? Rome would not readily recognize the nature of the charge and the life of a trouble maker should be in their views sacrificed by governor to keep the Roman peace. By viewing the messianic claim as a royalist claim the religious leaders had placed a very deadly perspective on the trial. It would have been difficult for Pilate to explain away this charge. Pilate then had Jesus brought out and placed in a public spot for the pronouncement of the sentence. The charge that he was working against Caesar’s interest had worked on Pilate. Pilate’s patron was [unknown] who was executed in A.D. 31, about two years before this event. Now this meant that Pilate was in a difficult position, after all, if the man who had been your patron and through whom you had gotten one office after another was executed for treason, you had better watch your step. It is perhaps for this reason that Pilate had been sent to Judea which was almost a graveyard for Roman officers. A very important post but one that did not advance your career, you had nothing but problems, appeals against you, and it was a constant headache.

Pilate already had a record of troubles with the Jews so that any further trouble could lead to his downfall and even his own execution. If the reckoning of time is Roman the sixth hour would be like ours, the sixth from midnight. Pilate presented Jesus to the religious leaders saying with anger and contempt, behold your king. The blood stained prisoner was what they deserved like it or not he was saying. They cried out, however, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate then asked: shall I, or must I, crucify your king? The religious leaders then shouted ‘we have no king but Caesar.’ They rejected God incarnate for a pagan emperor, there was nothing more that Pilate could say. The religious leaders had rejected a great and good miracle worker, possibly divine, for the a political leader with a tainted reputation as he aged, according to Suetonius. Suetonius’ Lives of the Twelve Caesars is a hum drum account of the various emperors, including Tiberius, and their vices, which is grim reading. These men lived lives that were pornographic, just to recount them historically is a sorry, sorry tale. So Pilate delivered Jesus to them to be crucified by Roman officers and they took Jesus and led Him away.

The culminating charge against Jesus was He made Himself the Son of God. This charge was never investigated nor shown to be false. The leaders called it high blasphemy which thereby merited death. They refused to admit that it could be a true statement. The religious leaders were ready to believe in God providing he kept far from them and allowed them to rule in His name. Their nearness of God was intolerable to them. As we have seen truth has an inescapably moral dimension. In a fallen sinful world truth will be hated, most of all truth incarnate. Truth is disruptive, it is divisive in a fallen world and hence truth is crucified. We are told that Satan is a liar and the father of lies and a fallen world will love lies and hate the truth. If truth could be intellectually affirmed without consequences it would be popular enough and meaningless because truth always has consequences. The purely intellectual definitions of truth are lifeless and inoffensive. Philosophers in earlier eras, especially the scholastics, in Hellenic or Greek terms reduced the trinity to substance, the Father, structure, the Son and act, the Spirit. In other words, they were no longer persons they were ideas. Such a trinity creates no offense. It can be no more than the idea of nature analyzed into substance, structure, act. It is an absence and intellectual concept and nothing more but God the Son is a person, the second person of the Godhead, He is our creator and our judge, our redeemer or our prosecutor.

There is no escaping Him. Psalm 139:7-12 tells us that neither hell nor the remotest place can hide us from him, as Saint Augustine and Francis Thompson in the Hound of Heaven testified. The moral dimension of truth centers on Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ was the judge as He stood before Pilate and in that trial all men and all courts were tried and found wanting. When men neglect the fact of God’s invasion of history in the person of Jesus Christ they neglect truth and justice and their own salvation. In a fallen world the power of a lie is real and very great, we see this in the trial of Jesus, but only the truth conquers death and is resurrected. God who made all things ordained that all things serve and glorify Him. Let us pray.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee for Thy word. We thank Thee that through Thy word Thou dost open up to us Thy truth. Make us ever receptive to Thee and Thy word. Make us joyful in what Thou hast done for us and mindful of the price that it cost Thy Son. Bless us always and make us faithful and joyful in Thy service, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] What was that again?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] We do have accounts of crucifixions, yes, and of the way prisoners were treated, but this was not recorded by the Roman historians. One thing that marked them was they wanted no part of anything in Judea. Judea was resented because too much money was being spent there, the Romans had made it a city of marvel, of palaces, beautifully paved streets because they wanted to keep them happy. It’s the same thing over and over again as today all kinds of money is thrown at various peoples to make them happy. The contracts for security guards, for example, at various housing projects are given to black Muslims, [unknown] and his group, who are then free to do as they please and recruit and do what they choose and nobody is going to criticize him. Incidentally [unknown] is very much on the side of the Arab Muslims in Sudan who are trying to wipe out the blacks of the Sudan and take over the rich lands they have. And they are either killing them or enslaving them but [unknown] goes there and thinks nothing of it. The black caucus also thinks nothing of the revival of slavery in Africa by Muslims. So the Romans too, their idea was we’ll just throw money at Judea and the problem will go away. You would think after two thousand years we would know better but we don’t.

It was Israeli who once remarked and he was a very astute man, he said practical men are men who reproduce the blunders of their predecessors, or practice the blunders of their predecessors. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] They would have filed charges at once against him…

[Question] But they could not crucify Christ.

[Rushdoony] No they could not. The only time they carried out an execution was with Steven and what had happened was there was a gap between one governor departing and another coming so they were able to exercise their own death penalty briefly. But normally they would have insisted that Jesus be held in custody until they appealed to Rome and it would have been the end of Pilate. Any other questions or comments?

Well as you can see injustice is nothing new in history, it’s as old as history since the fall. It is not going to change until men are converted. Only then can you have justice, life is of peace. If men reject the truth, Jesus Christ, they are not going to love God’s law, the law of justice. Well, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank Thee that Jesus Christ came, made atonement for our sins, and destroyed with His resurrection the power of sin and death. We thank Thee our Father that in Him we have newness of life. Grant that Thy gospel cover the earth from pole to pole and that ll men and nations know that Christ is king, lord of lords, our only Savior and law giver. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.