Matthew 27:11

‘Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, saying, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And Jesus said to him, “It is you who say” '

It is made clear here in what terms the Chief Priests and Elders have brought their charge. It is on the basis that He is claiming to be ‘the King of the Jews'. This was the kind of claim that Pilate would be interested in, a political charge of prospective treason. As we have already seen it parallels the title given by the Magi in Matthew 2:2. See also Matthew 27:29; Matthew 27:37 which reveal what an impact this title had had on him. The people of Israel did not speak of themselves as ‘Jews'. They were ‘Jews' to outsiders. But the title carries within it the idea of the Expected One seen from a Gentile point of view. It thus carried within it intrinsically a threat to law and order, and the peace of the realm.

So when Pilate asks Jesus if He is, as His accusers have stated that He has claimed, the King of the Jews, His reply is again, ‘It is you who have said it' (compare Matthew 26:64). Once more it is not a denial but an indication that He is being misrepresented. He is in a sense the King of the Jews, but not in the sense in which His accusers have used the term. In John 18:34 He puts it this way, ‘do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about Me?' The quiet way in which Jesus replies carries with it its own indication of innocence. Pilate would have expected a vociferous denial, or a belligerent and snarling agreement. What he was not expecting from this bound and disreputable looking figure (made disreputable looking by the treatment that He had received) was a reasoned reply.

‘The Governor.' Pilate was strictly a Praefectus (testified to by an inscription that has been discovered), a military man put in charge of overseeing the running of a state where trouble might be expected. It was his responsibility to oversee the governing of the state and maintain its peaceful state without necessarily himself being directly involved in running it on a continual basis. As long as peace was maintained and taxes were paid they could run themselves, apart from when he felt it necessary to step in. All major decisions, however, lay in his hands, especially decisions concerning treason, and he could go about dealing with them almost as he would, as long as he maintained the peace. Thus this was a decision which very much depended on him. But first he had to be sure of the nature of the charge. And while outwardly it appeared quite simple (Jesus was setting Himself up as a king) it was clear to him that neither side were quite saying what he would normally have understood by the charge. On the one hand it was clear that the rulers of the Jews had religious motives for their action, and on the other there was nothing about Jesus that suggested the revolutionary. Furthermore he must have had some previous intelligence about Jesus. What had been going on in Jerusalem would not have been totally ignored by his spies and informers, and he had good cause to know that Jesus was not an insurrectionist. Thus he was baffled, and yet very much impressed with Jesus.

But he was a man on a knife edge. While he disliked the Jewish rulers, and despised them, there was on the other hand the sad fact that certain complaints had gone to Tiberius Caesar about him in the not too distant past so that he had fairly recently suffered a rebuke at Caesar's hands. Thus while he did not necessarily want to do what the Jews were asking of him unless they could demonstrate their case, and would indeed have gained some pleasure from thwarting them, he knew that he could not afford to have another complaint made against him on a doubtful matter. And his problem was increased further by Jesus' unwillingness to defend himself openly. Roman custom laid much emphasis on the right of a man to defend himself, and His silence thus presented him with another difficulty. For while he could see that the prisoner was not anything like He was portrayed as being, that would not be obvious in any report reaching Caesar. All that that would say was that the prisoner had offered no defence. The conclusion would be obvious. This explains the ambivalent attitude that he displays.