Bible Study series: John 18:28-40. Jesus’s kingdom is not of this world. Then he says, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” In response, Pilate asks, “What is truth?” Jesus had earlier said he is the way, the truth, and the life (14:6). It all comes together now.
Friendly greetings and a warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together how to apply these truths to our lives.
I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click here:
For the Greek text, click here:
At that link, I provide a lot more commentary.
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: John 18:28-40
28 Then they brought Jesus from Caiaphas to the governor’s residence. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the residence so that they would not be defiled but they may eat the Passover. 29 Pilate came outside to them and said, “Which accusation do you bring against this man?” 30 In reply, they said to him, “If this man had not committed a crime, we would not have handed him over to you.” 31 So Pilate said to them, “You yourselves take him and judge him according to your law.” The Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to kill anyone.” 32 (This was said so that the word of Jesus would be fulfilled, which he spoke, indicating which kind of death he was about to die. [John 12:32-33]) 33 Pilate then went back into the residence and summoned Jesus and said to him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own, or have others spoken to you about me?” 35 Pilate replied, “I’m not a Jew, am I? Your own people and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my subjects would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But as a matter of fact my kingdom is not from here.” 37 Pilate then said to him, “So then you are a king.” Jesus replied, “You say that I am a king. I have been born for this and have come into the world, so that I should testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. 38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
And on saying this, he went back to the Jews and said to them, “I discover no basis for a charge in this case. 39 But there is your custom that I release someone to you at Passover. So do you counsel that I release to you the king of the Jews?” 40 They then shouted again, saying, “Not him, but Barabbas instead!” Barabbas was an insurrectionist. (John 18:28-40)
Comments:
28:
John includes the quick examination before the emeritus high priest Annas, and the Synoptics omit it. The Synoptics include the examination by Caiaphas, while John omits it. So their narrative are complementary.
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Evening and Morning Jewish and Roman Examination of Jesus |
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| 1 | Inquiry before Annas (John 18:13) |
| 2 | Evening meeting with Caiaphas presiding (Mark 14:55 = Matt. 26:59-66) |
| 3 | Morning confirmation before an official Jewish body, probably Sanhedrin (Mark 15:1b-5 = Matt. 27:1, 2-11 = Luke 23:1-5 = John 18:29-38) |
| 4 | Initial Meeting with Pilate (Luke 23:6-12) |
| 5 | Meeting with Herod (Luke 23:6-12) |
| 6 | A second, more public meeting with Pilate and the people (Luke 23:13-16), and the consequence is to condemn him and release Barabbas: Matt. 27:15-23 = Mark 15:6-14 = Luke 23:17-23 = John 18:39-40 |
| Darrell L. Bock, Luke 9:51-24:53, Vol. 2, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Baker, 1996), p. 1793, slightly edited, comment on Luke 22:66. | |
The chronology of the Synoptics places the major Passover meal on the previous evening, so the meal referred to in v. 28 is another meal during the seven-day Feast of Passover (Mounce, comment on v. 28).
To coordinate the timeline between the Synoptic Gospels and John, see my summary of Carson’s analysis at John 13:1 and 27:
There are two extremes in the battle for the Bible. One is “total inerrancy,” a term that devout theologians and Christian philosophers came up with in 1974 to describe the Bible. Then they and others wrote up a document called “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy” (1978) (It is available online). The problem is that the Statement’s drafters attached so many exceptions in their articles that it is difficult to believe that “total” means much. The other extreme is seen in the post-Enlightenment (≈1600-1800+), postmodern (today) hyper-critics who gleefully make too much of unanswered questions. Both extremes place unreasonably heavy demands on documents that are two thousand years old (at least), before the Gutenberg press was invented in the mid-1400s.
I urge a more balanced and realistic approach to the authority and inspiration and infallibility of Scripture. For salvation and faith in Christ and discipleship in him, the Bible is absolutely infallible and inspired and authoritative. On incidental matters and history, it is highly reliable and accurate (e.g. Jerusalem is in the south and Galilee is in the north; ancient civilizations like Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon really existed and struggled with and influenced ancient Israel; Baal really was a pagan deity; Rome dominated first-century Israel, and thousands of other examples). So let’s learn deep, life-changing truths from Scripture and apply them to our lives. Let’s be confident in Scripture in its historical and cultural data. But let’s not place heavy, anachronistic, and modern demands on it. And our faith must not snap in two when tiny, nonessential details don’t quite add up.
My view of Scripture. It’s very high, but I don’t believe in “total” inerrancy or “hyper-inerrancy”:
‘Total’ Inerrancy and Infallibility or Just Infallibility?
The Battle for the Bible is an American issue. I encourage all Christians outside of America not to get involved with it.
Now let’s move on.
The temporary residence, called the praetorium here in v. 19, the temporary headquarters of the Roman military governor. Pilate was in Jerusalem during the Passover to keep order in the overflow crowds. The praetorium could be two buildings: (1) Herod’s place on the western wall (the tower Phasael survives as the northeastern tower of the Citadel, south of the Jaffa Gate. (2) The Antonia fortress northwest of the temple, connected to the temple by the steps of Acts 21:35, 40). This website is not equipped with Bible maps, so you can google these places on your own.
It was early in the morning, when the governor began to hear cases. However, the Jews were about to eat the official Passover, for which the lambs were slaughtered in the afternoon of this day, which had just dawned. So entering a Gentile house would have defiled them or made them ritually unclean. Bruce points out that the chief priest’s care not to be ritually unclean for the Passover is ironic. They had no such concern about pushing for the execution of Jesus, the innocent lamb of God (John 1:29).
29-32:
Pontius Pilate: The Christian creeds remember him as the governor under whom Jesus Christ suffered (1 Tim. 6:13) (see the Apostles Creed). The NT calls him governor while other sources call him prefect (his official title). Pontius was his nomen (tribal name) and Pilate was his cognomen (family name). His praenomen (personal name) is nowhere recorded. He came to power in A.D. 26. He was an anti-Semite. He brought into Jerusalem the insignia of the Roman military bearing the image of Caesar. He planted armed Roman soldiers, disguised as civilians, among the populace. This may have been the historical occasion for Luke 13:1, which says that Pilate mingled Galilean blood with their sacrifices. It is surprising then that he felt pressure from the Jewish authorities to put Jesus to death. However, he could have believed his position in the empire was precarious; John 19:12 says that if he released Jesus he would be no friend of Caesar. The NT writers were eager to show that he was innocent in regards to Roman law. Yet the only way the Jewish Council could convict Jesus was to accuse him of claiming to be king. Pilate’s name does not appear in Judea after A.D. 36/37, and this indicates he was removed shortly after he slaughtered Samaritans on Mt. Gerizim (Holman’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary).
He can be looked up online now.
When they said that Jesus had committed a crime (literally “did evil,”), they meant that he committed a crime deserving death. Jews could punish people by their own law, but they could not execute people. This had to be done by the Romans. However, the Romans granted the religious authorities the right to execute someone instantly, when he violated the sanctity of the temple. This is why in Mark’s narrative they tried to charge him with violating the sanctity of the temple (14:57-59). Stephen was stoned to death for supposedly speaking against the temple (Acts 6:49-50; 54-60).
Jesus predicted what kind of death he would die—crucifixion. Normally, under Jewish law, people were stoned to death or hanged on a tree (Deut. 21:22-23). However, Jesus had said that he would be “lifted up” and draw all men to himself (12:32-33). He was to be lifted up on the cross.
So bottom line for these four verses: Pilate and the Jewish accusers were fulfilling the will of the Father, despite their being evil and committing an injustice on a human level. God can use even unredeemed and obtuse and unaware men to accomplish his purposes. Jesus would not be stoned to death or hanged by Jewish law, but crucified under Roman law, especially for sedition.
33-35:
Pilate asked Jesus directly whether he was the king of the Jews: guilty or not guilty. Mounce suggests that the pronoun you in v. 33, placed in the emphatic position up front, indicates that the accusers’ claim that Jesus was the king of the Jews was preposterous. “You—you?!—are the king of the Jews? Preposterous! Clearly Pilate was trying to sort these things out.
The Messiah could be regarded as the king over Israel (John 1:49), and if anyone claimed to be king in a Roman province (Judea was annexed in A.D. 6), he was denying Caesar’s sovereignty and thus guilty of sedition, a capital offense. However, Jesus will be ambiguous in vv. 37-38a. In John 19:7, we will read that the Jews accused him of calling himself the Son of God. In the synoptic Gospels Jesus affirmed that he was the Messiah, the Son of God, in front of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin (Matt. 26:63-64). This was blasphemy by Jewish understanding at that time. Click on over to Matt. 26:
Matt. 26 (scroll down to vv. 63-64) and read how blasphemy was much more broadly defined, four decades before the destruction of the temple, than it was in later Talmudic times.
But Pilate did not know the intricacies of Jewish law. He wanted to know whether Jesus claimed to be king of the Jews without any ambiguity and by the standard definition of kingship, as understood by the Romans: a political, sovereign king over a kingdom.
“Where this is smoke, there is fire.” That saying, in effect, is what Pilate tells Jesus. The chief priests must have found something guilty in him. They cannot be so whimsical and capricious that they make up accusation of crimes. Instead of answering at that moment (he will answer in the next verse) Jesus is probing Pilate. How does he understand kingship? Who told him about Jesus’s kingship? Jesus seems to turn the tables and asks for Pilate’s opinion.
36-38a:
Now Jesus answers the question directly, but too ambiguously for Pilate. “King” is your word, and I partly confirm it, but not in the way you think. Carson says that Jesus is unambiguous in his reply and endorses NIV translation “You are right in saying I am a king.” This makes sense because Jesus will admit that he has a kingdom, but not a worldly kingdom.
Bruce translates the last sentence in v. 36 as “My kingdom proceeds from another source.” Excellent. So you are a king, then, Pilate states, with a hint of confusion. Jesus answer has been used by many Bible interpreters to separate off the kingdom of God and his Son and the kingdoms of the world, and this separation is the right way. So, yes, Jesus is a king, but over an invisible kingdom, which is no real threat to Rome. Jesus did not resist his arrest and even healed Malchus’ ear. He was no insurrectionist, nor a threat to imperial majesty.
I really like how Jesus proclaims his purpose: He was born for this purpose and came into the world for this purpose: to testify about the truth. Pilate abruptly ends his investigation
Recall these words: “and you will know the truth, and the truth will free you” (John 8:32). “Jesus said to [Thomas], “I am the way, the truth and the life’” (14:6). Jesus’s Messiahship and proclamation are now universal—for everyone and for all times. They cannot be confined to Judaism or Israel.
Let’s go for a general definition of truth.
Biblical truth is not only an abstract truth floating out there but makes no impact on us. It is the truth that we know. We can know this proposition theoretically: “God exists.” (Or, better, we can believe it.) But in Christ, we can know God personally. “I know God.” So knowledge of God, the highest and greatest being in the universe, is personal, according to the Bible.
“truth”: Let’s focus on the Greek noun. It is alētheia (pronounced ah-lay-thay-ah and is used 109 times). Truth is a major theme in the Johannine literature: 45 times.
BDAG is considered by many to be the authoritative lexicon of the Greek NT, and the lexicon defines the noun in these ways:
(1).. “The quality of being in accord with what is true, truthfulness, dependability, uprightness.”
(2).. “The content of what is true, truth.”
(3).. “An actual state or event, reality.”
So truth gained from the world around us is possible. Our beliefs must correspond to the outside world (outside of you and me). But it goes deeper than just the outside world. We must depend on God’s character and his Word. That is the meaning of the first definition. God is true or truthful or dependable, or upright. Everything else flows from him.
For good measure, let’s look at some definitions from the larger Greek world. The noun alētheia means I.. truth; 1.. truth as opposed to a lie; 2.. truth, reality as opposed to appearance. II.. truthfulness, sincerity, frankness, candor (Liddell and Scott). So I.2 says that truth goes more deeply than appearances. And the second definition (II) links truth with character. It is interesting, however, that frankness and candor is a synonym of truth. This fits the apostolic preaching in the book of Acts. Maybe we could call it boldness and fearlessness.
However, this general definition must give way that Jesus’ mission was to proclaim the truth—and he was that truth. Truth was personal, in the person of Jesus himself. But Pilate wanted a philosophical discussion. Evidently, Jesus did not give him one.
Klink: “The personal nature of Jesus’s arrival and presence in the world must set the context for the nature of his work of truth telling. That is, the truth about which Jesus witnesses is overtly personal. His purpose was to speak truth or better, to make manifest what is true” (comment on v. 37). Then the result of Jesus truth telling is that everyone who hears or listens to (obeys) his voice is from the truth.
Finally, the “subjects” is the same noun for “officers” or police of the temple (John 7:32, 45-46; 18:3, 12, 18, 22). Jesus’s kingdom “officers” are servants.
38b:
The last clause could be translated as “I discover in him no basis for a charge.”
According to Roman law, a man could be found guilty when he admitted it, but did Jesus really admit that he was a king who threatened Roman authority? No. He was no threat. Luke agrees:
13 Then Pilate summoned the chief priests, the rulers and the people 14 and said to them, “You brought me this man as someone misleading the people. And look! I have examined him before you and found in this man no legal cause of which you have accused him! (Luke 23:13-14)
39-40:
All four Gospels report this custom of releasing someone from prison at Passover. Carson says that the Mishnah, a collection of opinions on the Torah, written down in about A.D. 200, may allude to the custom in Pesahim 8:6, indicating they may slaughter the Passover lambs for conditions is uncertain (e.g. invalids), including ‘one whom they have promised to bring out of prison.’ Carson says that the prisoner was not under restraints by a Jewish court, because the Jewish court could make a decision about the prisoner, one way or another at Passover season. The restraint was done by a foreign court (e.g. Roman). Legislation was required, which was in the authority of the Sanhedrin. So it seems we have a mixture of Roman law and Jewish influence on this custom.
A certain segment of the population called out for the release of Barabbas the insurrectionist (or just plain robber or bandit). But Pilate annoyed the Jewish establishment and called Jesus “king of the Jews.” He was being ironical. Or he may have been insulting them, implying that this title was so insignificant that he was no imperial threat in the backwater province of Judea. But Pilate must have backed off, because it was his job to administer Roman law. So he fixed on a custom which could solve his difficulty. Jesus could be considered guilty of being “king of the Jews,” but then released because of the custom. Instead, some in the crowd shouted out for Barabbas. Mark 15:7 and Luke 23:19 says that there had been a recent uprising and someone had been murdered, so Barabbas was thrown in prison. Matt. 27:16 says that he was infamous.
The Jews shouted again indicates they had been shouting before. John had omitted the detail but picks it up with the word again.
So Barabbas was accused of being an insurrectionist, and now Jesus was accused of being an insurrectionist. The irony must not have eluded Pilate.
Borchert summarizes Pilate’s scheme and how it backfired.
So Pilate offered a choice that seemed obvious, yet even the choice contained a hook that clearly would have irritated the Jewish establishment. The choice was either to release Jesus, whom he knowingly called “the King of the Jews,” or the scoundrel and thief, Barabbas. Mark goes further in 15:7 and identifies Barabbas as a murderer and an insurrectionist. This Barabbas was hardly the kind of person Pilate thought the Jews would desire to have loosed on their society. The obvious alternative from his point of view was the healer, wonder worker, and prophet-type king. He must have smirked at the choice he gave to the people. But Pilate had not calculated on the scheming way in which the Jewish leadership had readied the group outside the Praetorium to answer him. Pilate’s shrewd plan was undone by the leadership when the people chose the scoundrel and rejected the King. (comments on vv. 39-40)
GrowApp for John 18:28-40
1. Jesus said he was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. What is your purpose?
2. Everyone who is of the truth listens to his voice. Which truth has the voice of God by his Spirit spoken to your heart?
RELATED
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
12. Eyewitness Testimony in John’s Gospel
4. Church Fathers and John’s Gospel
3. Archaeology and John’s Gospel
SOURCES
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