John 19:6-8

‘When therefore the chief priests and the officers saw him they cried out, saying, “Crucify him, crucify him.” Pilate says to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him.” The Judaisers answered, “We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” When Pilate therefore heard this saying he was the more afraid.'

The sight of Jesus reawakened the hatred of the Judaisers and their supporters. Pilate saw a pathetic figure. They saw a thorn in their sides. He saw someone relatively harmless. They saw the man whose teaching had often brought them into such ridicule that they could never forgive Him. He saw someone powerless to do anything. They saw the man whose miracles had won Him allegiance from the crowds and even support from among their own. He saw a quiet philosopher. They saw One who had challenged their status and sought to ruin their prosperous trading in the Temple. So they had only one thing in mind. “Crucify him, crucify him,” was their cry. They were beyond reason. They were beyond thought. They simply wanted to get rid of Him. Their minds were tired and they had worked themselves up in the previous few weeks to a state of such frustration and vindictiveness that any possibility of retraction was absent.

We note that this was not an average baying crowd. It was made up of the Chief Priests and their officers and supporters, and supporters of the insurrectionists like Barabbas. The former had lost all dignity and abased themselves. And now for the first time they were truthful with Pilate. Up to this point they had presented Jesus as a troublemaker, and a possible insurrectionist. Now they admitted the truth. It was a question of theology after all. He had made Himself out to be the Son of God, and this was against their law of blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16). But even that was not the real charge, that was the one that was used to convince the Sanhedrin. The real reason that He was there was because He had exposed their teaching and their ways. What greater blasphemy could there be than that?

There is little reason to doubt that the final thing that had infuriated them was His claim that He would be seen as the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God and coming in the clouds of Heaven (Mark 14:62; Matthew 26:64; Luke 22:69), as the King Who would come to the throne of God to receive glory and kingship (Daniel 7:1). They saw this as a snub to them and as a claim to be the Son of God in a unique sense and as a further claim to be destined to share God's power. And they were in fact right. Where they were wrong was in not recognising the validity of His claim as evidenced by the signs that He had performed.

‘You take Him and crucify Him according to your law.' Pilate was angry and somewhat afraid. Angry because they had been dishonest with him, and afraid because of the uneasy feeling he had about this man. He did not like coming up against something to do with unearthly powers. So he essentially derided them. ‘That is your sentence,' he says, ‘passed on the basis of your laws. So you crucify him.'

But he knew perfectly well that they could not. Their powers were limited. Blasphemy against Judaism was not a Roman offence. Rome's laws were not intended to enforce non-earthly superstitions. Why then should Rome do the job for them?