City Life Starter

Written by Scott Fiddler

The Word

28 Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.

29 Therefore Pilate went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this Man?”

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

 31 So Pilate said to them, “Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law.” The Jews said to him, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death,”

 32 to fulfill the word of Jesus which He spoke, signifying by what kind of death He was about to die.

Exegesis

When I first read this passage of scripture I decided to write about how the Jews did not enter the Praetorium so they would not be defiled. I was going to mention how crazy it was that the Jews were fine with killing an innocent man but didn’t want to break their man-made religious tradition, how Jesus rebuked the Jewish religious leaders in Matthew 15 for being more concerned about their tradition than God’s commandments and then said that what they ate was not what defiled them but what came out of their heart, things such as evil thoughts, adultery, and murder.  Now here they were concerned about their man-made religious rules while in the midst of having an innocent man murdered. 

But as Forrest Gump said, “That’s all I have to say about that,” and I thought you would want to read more than one paragraph.

Then I thought about Pilate, who plays a prominent role in this and the next chapter of John’s gospel, and decided to depart from the text and write about him. Tiberius Caesar was Roman Emperor from AD 14-37, that is, during the earthly ministry of Jesus.  Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea from AD 26-36, and he reported directly to Tiberius.  Given that the miracles attributed to Jesus and Jesus’ resurrection occurred under Pilate’s watch as governor and Pilate’s obligation to make reports to Tiberius, it’s reasonable to assume Pilate mentioned such matters to Tiberius. 

In fact, that’s what Eusebius reports. Eusebius, the first great Church historian, writing in the early fourth century, records that Pilate, in accordance with the custom of rulers of nations to report unusual occurrences to the emperor, transmitted to Tiberius an account of the circumstances concerning Jesus’ miracles and resurrection, a report that was already spreading throughout Palestine. Tiberius, apparently persuaded by Pilate’s report, submitted the matter to the Roman Senate with the request Jesus be recognized as a god. However, the Senate had not investigated the matter fully and rejected the request.

According to Eusebius, Pilate’s report may have had some effect on Tiberius though because Tiberius did not encourage persecution of Christians during the remainder of his reign and actually threatened the death of those who did accuse and persecute Christians. As a result, the kingdom of God advanced more freely than it might have otherwise under a more hostile ruler.

And as Paul Harvey used to say, now you have the rest of the story.