John 18:40

‘They therefore cried out again, saying, “Not this man but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a brigand.'

Pilate's desperate attempt had failed, as it had to. How could he even think that the leaders would allow the people to call for the freedom of the man they were determined to see die. He was clearly in a bemused state.

So they cried for Barabbas instead. And John says firmly and succintly, ‘now Barabbas was a brigand'. This did not exclude the fact that he was a revolutionary. Revolutionaries often also act as brigands. The main stress is on the fact that his behaviour was such that it was outside the law, and violent.

John has summarised the matter very quickly. His concern has been to show that an innocent peaceful Jesus was unfairly treated by the justice of Rome, by a man who had later himself been deposed from office by Rome itself. And that He was in fact totally innocent, and acknowledged by the judge as being so. And that His conviction was unfair. That indeed He was more than innocent. That he was the bringer of truth from God. And that the one they had chosen was in contrast, a brigand, a murdering, thieving no-good who would continue to be so.

As we will continue to see in the following chapter it is Jesus' innocence that is being stressed. The main reason for this is in order to demonstrate that He was the unblemished Lamb (Exodus 12:5 and often). But a secondary purpose may well have been to assure readers, and indeed the Roman Empire itself, that Jesus was no enemy of Rome and was not guilty of any criminal offence, and that the Romans had no need to be afraid of Christians.

It was surely in God's purpose that the brigand had the name that he had. Bar-abbas means ‘son of Abba', ‘son of a father'. John's Gospel knows two fathers. One the Father, the other ‘your father the devil'. They asked for the release of the son of the devil and demanded death for the Son of the Father. How better could they show which side they were on?