John 19:1-16

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

Vv. 1-16. 1. The action of Pilate in connection with the scourging of Jesus and the giving Him up to the insults of the soldiers was evidently, as we see from John 19:4-6, with the design of inducing the Jewish leaders to yield with respect to the demand for His death. The words of John 19:4, “Behold, I bring him out to you, that you may know that I find no crime in Him,” indicate anew his belief in Jesus' innocence and appeal to the sense of justice in the Jews. Those of John 19:5, “Behold the man,” appeal to their compassion. If there be anything more than this appeal, it is probably what Meyer supposes, “This suffering one cannot be the usurper of a throne.” It suggests, therefore, the unreasonableness of their course, the groundlessness of their severity. Finally, the words of John 19:6 are spoken with indignation, as Pilate finds that his effort is unsuccessful and that their answer to his appeal is only in the outcry, “Crucify, crucify.” At this point Pilate approaches to the very borders of the boldness of real courage. It was the point which men of his character sometimes reach under great provocation, and where only a step is needed to transform them into men of true nobility or even heroes. But the step is not taken. To any one who has, in his own experience with men, seen a character of the order of Pilate subjected to a test of a similar kind who has seen the struggle, the impulse to do the right act, the indignation at the unyielding opposition and pressure, the seemingly courageous refusal to violate the sense of justice in the soul, let the enemies do what they will, and then the submission, at the end, through fear inspired by the consciousness of a past career which it is dangerous to have investigated or made public to any one who has seen this, the story of Pilate leading up to this point will prove that the author who tells it was either the witness of the facts, or that he had the creative imagination of the higher order of writers of fiction. But the author of this Gospel, whatever else he may have possessed, certainly did not have this creative imagination.

2. The Jewish rulers, finding Pilate dangerously near to a refusal of their demands, are driven to the use of the last two means at their command the excitement of his fear of disregarding their law, which the Roman power, according to its policy towards conquered nations, would respect, and of his fear of the Roman emperor, in case he seemed to protect one who was guilty of treason. They try to awaken the former fear first. The resort to personal intimidation, in the strictest sense of the words, was so base a thing that they would reserve it for the final moment, the moment of absolute necessity.

In their appeal to their own law, we see once more that the charge against Jesus was blasphemy. They understood Him to place Himself on an equality with God.

3. The effect of what they said was evidently different from that which they expected. Pilate's fears were awakened, but in another line. The sceptic became superstitious. The movement of Pilate's mind here was most natural. The intellectual, as well as the careless, doubter, when he is aroused by some thought of the possibility that the belief of those about him may, after all, be true, easily passes, for the moment, into the sphere of superstition, or what is like it. This must have been the case, in a peculiar degree perhaps, with men of this class in the age when Pilate lived. As he hears the expression, Son of God, and thinks of the wonderful bearing of Jesus and His remarkable words, he seems to question whether He may not be, indeed, something more than an ordinary man, some Divine messenger or being who has appeared on earth.

4. The reason why Jesus gave no answer to Pilate's question suggested by his fear: Whence art thou? we may believe to have been His knowledge that Pilate's condition of mind and heart was such that an answer would have accomplished no good. The sceptic of Pilate's class, whether he is rejecting truth as having no reality, or, under the influence of some sudden fear, is turning towards superstition whether he is ready to say, What is truth? or, Whence art thou? is best treated as Jesus treated Pilate. He asks his question with no desire or intention to be moved in his inner life if the true answer is given and silence is the only answer that may, by a possibility, awaken his conscience.

5. Pilate now assumes the dignity of his office, and calls the attention of Jesus to the power which he possesses over Him. To this Jesus replies. In the words of Jesus (John 19:11) there are apparently two suggestions: first, in the way of rebuke to Pilate, reminding him that all his power is dependent on God; and, secondly, in the way of lenity, admitting that his sin is less than that of the Jewish rulers. The verse, in its details, bears especially on this latter point. Because the authority over Jesus in the present case was given to Pilate of God that is, because he was in a Divinely assigned station, according to the providential arrangement, where he must judicially try all persons brought before his tribunal, his sin was less than that of those who, by their own voluntary action, brought Him before that tribunal. His act in conducting the trial was a part of his official work; theirs was a wilful violation of all justice. There was an involuntary element in his relation to the matter, but not in theirs. This fact lessened his sin. Whatever Pilate's sin might be in his final yielding to the pressure of the Jews, it would not equal that voluntary, selfish, bitter enmity which originated the whole movement against Jesus, and carried it forward even to the point of bringing Him before the Roman governor and demanding His crucifixion.

6. The words of John 19:12 whether we understand them, with Godet and most commentators, as implying a succession of further efforts to persuade the Jews and release Jesus with their consent, or, with Weiss, as meaning that he attempted to release Him at once, but was prevented by the renewed outcry of the Jews show that Pilate was much affected by the words of Jesus (John 19:11) and His silence (John 19:9). Pilate was not, indeed, moving towards belief in Jesus; he was not in a condition of mind to receive honestly and heartily the answer which Jesus must have given, had He broken His silence in John 19:9. But he was conscious of the injustice of treating Him as a criminal, and apprehensive, perhaps, of the vengeance of the Divine power, or of some divinity represented in or by Jesus, if he gave Him up to His enemies. He attempted anew, therefore, to release Him.

7. The Jews bring forward the appeal to Pilate's personal fears as related to the Roman emperor. These fears were, doubtless, due to two causes: first, the well-known suspiciousness of the emperor; and, secondly, his own bad record in the past. The latter point was the one of greatest importance. Resistance became hopeless from this moment, for he could not face the possibility of a charge against him at Rome, which should involve, perhaps, the investigation of his past career. He succumbed to the enemy notwithstanding his conviction of the innocence of Jesus and his insight into the baseness and deadly hatred of the Jews because he was unable to meet the threatened danger to himself.

8. The words, Behold your King (John 19:14), may, perhaps, have been intended in part to convey a final appeal to the Jews to consent to His release, and in part to express his own bitter feeling by way of scorn. Or they may, perhaps, have been intended to intimate that he now brought Jesus out before them to pass the sentence upon him which they should demand. Behold your king the one whom you charge with declaring Himself against Caesar what shall be done to Him? They answer, Crucify Him. Pilate says, Shall I crucify your King? He means, thus, to make them assume the responsibility, and assume it on the ground on which they had made their last accusation (John 19:12). In this latter case, and not improbably this is the right view, Pilate's question in John 19:15 is, as it were, his washing his hands (comp. Weiss); and, we may add, the reply of the chief-priests, We have no king but Caesar, is, in substance, their expression of readiness to take the responsibility: His blood be upon us and upon our children. This last act and word of Pilate, as given in Matthew's Gospel and John's, is as characteristic of the men of Pilate's class as are all the other words and acts of his which John records.

9. The phrase Preparation of the Passover (John 19:14) may possibly mean either Friday of the Passover week, or the hours or day of preparation for the Passover feast. That it, probably, has the latter meaning is indicated by the fact that, if the former idea had been in the mind of the author, it would have been unnecessary to add the words τοῦ πάσχα, for every reader would know that it was the Passover week. If we hold that the Friday on which Jesus was crucified was the day in the day-light hours of which the preparation for the Passover supper, occurring in the evening, was made, and thus could properly be called the Preparation of the Passover and, also, the Preparation of the Sabbath, we find the simplest explanation of the terms which are used in different places and which designate it in one way or another as the Preparation. In the brief space allowed for these Additional Notes it was evidently impossible to enter into a full discussion of the question as to the day of Jesus' death, whether the 14th or 15th. The writer of these notes has limited himself, therefore, to an indication of the probabilities, as they appear to his own mind, in the several verses of this Gospel which bear upon the question, and the suggestion of a very few points which have seemed worthy to be considered. There is no passage in John's work which is absolutely decisive, but each of the several passages where a pointing in either direction can be discovered seems to point, to say the least, somewhat more strongly towards the 14th as the day, than the 15th. The Lord's Supper, if this be the true view, preceded by one day the Jewish Passover supper.