OUR FATHER WHOSE SON WAS FAULTLESS AND DID NO WRONG

The book of John chapter 18 verses 28 - 38 records the transfer of Jesus from the religious leaders to the Roman authorities. The religious establishment wanted to put Jesus to death but Roman law did not permit the local governments to impose the death penalty and so the priests began pressuring the Roman procurator of the region ( Pontius Pilate) to sentence Jesus to death on a vague charge of  ˋbeing an evildoerˋ.

Pilate was not persuaded that their indictment against Jesus was legitimate under Roman law. He told the priests and religious leaders to judge Jesus under their own law but they objected to his proposition because they would not be able to execute Jesus as they had pre-determined was the fitting sentence upon Him.

28 Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. But they themselves did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. 29 Pilate then went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this Man?”

30 They answered and said to him, “If He were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him up to you.”

31 Then Pilate said to them, “You take Him and judge Him according to your law.” Therefore the Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death,” 32 that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled which He spoke, signifying by what death He would die.

33 Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?”

34 Jesus answered him, “Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning Me?”

35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What have You done?”

36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”

37 Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?”

Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

38 Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all.

Pontius Pilate decided to ask Jesus directly about whether He was indeed claiming to be  the king of the Jews.

The Lord Jesus asked Pilate whether this question was out of his own belief or if it was just what he  had heard others say about Him.

Pilate responded rhetorically that he was not a Jew (implying that he had no stakes in the circumstance ) but that it was Jesusˋ own people who had handed Him over and so Pilate asked Jesus to explain to him what He had done to prompt His own people to try to get a foreign power to execute Him.

Jesus told Pilate that His kingdom was not an earthly kingdom and the proof that Jesus presented to verify this was that His servants did not fight to protect him from arrest.

Jesus was saying that if He was indeed attempting to create a rival kingdom to the displace the ruling establishment of Judea, He would have set up a military structure to protet himself and engage in trying to topple the existing Jewish regime. But there was was no such activity and therefore what was the religious leaders were claiming was baseless.

Pilate, understanding the absurdity of the charges against Jesus in view of the fact that that Jesus was of no military or political threat to the establishment, asked Jesus if He was a indeed king to which Jesus replied that He was a King who was born into the world to bear witness to the truth and any person who was inclined to the truth would reognized His voice. 

The procurator of Judea, himself a man from Rome, would have been familiar with the roiling debates about the nature of realiy and the pursuit of truth that would have been constantly debated in the streets and gathering places of Rome. The emergence of philosophers and preachers who claimed to have a new insight into the truth was common in Rome and their assertions were certainly not illegal.

Pilate was surprised to find that in this remote province of Rome was a man named Jesus who was taking a principled stand on what He believed to be true and he recognized that the religious leaders was probably resisting Jesus because His new philosophy was a threat to the established undertsanding of reality in the region. 

He went out to those who brought the accusations against jesus and declared that he found no fault in Him at all.

Amen.

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