John 18:36

John 18:36. Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants strive, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate had hardly comprehended the charge that Jesus made Himself a King. That Jesus really was so is the great point now to be established, the point to the confession of which Pilate shall ultimately be brought. Jesus, accordingly, without replying directly to die question, ‘What hast thou done?' turns to this. It is not His chief aim to explain the distinction between a spiritual and a political kingdom, a distinction which the Roman governor would hardly have been able to appreciate. It is to satisfy Pilate that He may be and is a King, although in a sense different from that in which Pilate understood the word. For the same purpose He adds, ‘Then would my servants strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews:' where the word ‘servants' (the same as ‘officers' in John 18:18) does not point to spiritual disciples of the Lord, but to such as would be His attendants and soldiers if He were a monarch of this world. The mark of an earthly kingdom thus selected is precisely to the purpose of our Lord's argument as we have understood it. Pilate thought that He could not be a King, else His servants would strive to prevent His present humiliation and fate. That is no argument against My royal claims in their true sense, is the reply, for My kingdom is not one that has its origin in this world. In short, the whole argument is not one of self-defence alone; it is intended to lead Pilate to the acknowledgment that the prisoner before him is a King. Thus also the ‘now' must be understood as the ‘now' of the Divine counsels, not of merely present time. The period can never come when other words than those before us may be used of the kingdom of Christ. It is never ‘of this world,' never ‘from hence.'