John 1:1-18

See John 18:1 ff for the passage quote with footnotes.

John 19:1. Then therefore Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him [ἕλαβεν οὖν ὁ Πιλ. τὸν Ἰησ. καὶ ἐμαστίγωσεν].—The second wretched politic attempt of the Roman, according to John. He took, or received, Jesus and scourged Him. The sending of Jesus before Herod’s tribunal, as also the hand-washing, likewise belong in this category. With this attempt he hopes to satisfy the vindictiveness of Jesus’ foes, perhaps even to excite their compassion—and so much the more, since according to his ideas, Jesus by this ignominious treatment, would be stripped of dignity in the eyes of the people and made of nope effect. On the act of scourging see Comm. on Matthew [p. 512]. As also on the different signification assumed by the scourging according to the Synoptists and according to John.

[Pilate probably, subjected Jesus to this disgraceful and horrible punishment in the vain hope of satisfying His accusers and moving them to compassion. The Roman mode of scourging is here meant, which was much more cruel than the Jewish; it was never inflicted upon Roman citizens, but only upon foreigners and slaves whose lives were considered of no account, either as a torture to extort a confession, or as a correction preparatory to crucifixion. The body was stripped, tied in a stooping posture to a low block or pillar, and the bare back lacerated by an unlimited number of lashes with rods or twisted thongs of leather, so that the poor sufferers frequently fainted and died on the spot.—P. S.]

John 19:2-3. And the soldiers, etc. [καὶ οἱ στρατιῶται πλέ ξαντες στέφανον ἐξ , κ. τ. λ.].—See Comm. on Matthew [p. 514]. “The derisive blow on the cheek [ἐδίδουν αὐτῷ ῥαπίσματα] is substituted for the kiss.”

John 19:4. I bring Him forth to you [Ἴδε ἄγω ὑμῖν αὐτὸν ἔξω ἵνα γνῶτε, κ. τ. λ.]—According to Matthew, the scourging of the Lord had been consummated before the eyes of the people (not “in the court of the prætorium”). For after the scourging, the soldiers had led Him into the prætorium, probably in a mocking procession as though the king were brought into his castle. The scene probably took place in the fortress-court or in a hall. Therefore we read here: “I bring Him forth unto you.”—That ye may know.—The Jews not possessing the right of capital punishment, the return of the person of Jesus to them was a declaration that He was free from the offence with which they charged Him. Pilate, however, utters his testimony unconditionally: no fault [οὐδεμίαν αἰτίαν].—The leading forth has been in different ways misinterpreted in regard to its intention,—by Gerhard, for instance: they should see how compliant he would be in punishing Him, if he found any fault in Him.

John 19:5. Behold, the man. [Ἴδε, or rather Ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος, see Text. Notes].—Ecce Homo! “But from the Lord cometh what the tongue shall speak.” (Proverbs 16:1 [Luther’s Bible. “The preparation of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.” E. V.]). Pilate’s words, unconsciously to himself, assume, like his superscription and the sentence of Caiaphas, a significance corresponding to the great situation. [An involuntary prophecy of heathenism, as the word of Caiaphas (John 11:51-52) was an involuntary prophecy of hostile Judaism.—P. S.] The word seems to express compassion; at all events it is designed to excite that emotion. There is no doubt as to the sense: there ye have Him again, and what a pitiable object! Take Him thus and let Him go. He forebodes not that Jesus is indeed the Man κατ’ ἐξοχήν [the one perfect Man], who, through his wicked pliancy, steps forth so outraged in His outward appearance.

John 19:6. The high-priests and the officers.—They cried as leaders—which does not exclude the joint crying of the assembled populace.

Take Him yourselves and crucify Him.—Pilate still makes a stand at the present stage, with a feeling of his own authority that causes him to deride the impotence of the Jews.

John 19:7. We have a law [ἡμεῖς νόμον ἔ χομεν].—The political accusation having borne no fruit, they now come out with the religious accusation in pursuance of which Jesus, at least according to their law, must die (as a blasphemer of God, namely, Leviticus 24:16, doubtless also as a false prophet, Deuteronomy 18:20). The ἡμεῖς, etc., defiantly arrayed against the ἐγώ—αἰτίαν of Pilate. They feel confident of Pilate’s obligation to respect their law. See Joseph. Antiq., XVI, 2, 3.

John 19:8. When Pilate—he was the more afraid [μᾶλλον ἐφοβήθη].—Their saying, in the first place, entirely missed the designed effect; it was productive of the opposite effect. Hitherto Pilate had been restrained by a fear of conscience or of law alone; now religious fear supervened, in connection with a fear of Jesus’ personality itself, of which latter sentiment he now became fully conscious. According to Matthew, the message of his wife has already been received, hence is jointly influential.

John 19:9. Again into the pretorium [καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸ πραιτώριον πάλιν]—We must supply in imagination the leading of Jesus before Pilate, in order to a fresh, private examination.—Whence art Thou? [πόθεν εἶ σύ].—The inquiry after the whence of Christ is indefinitely framed, in accordance with the Jews’ accusation and Pilate’s fear. Meyer: He pictures to himself the υἱὸς θεοῦ after the analogy of the heathen heroes, and fears the vengeance of the Jewish God Jehovah. Religious awe, in a moment of superstitious excitement, pictures to itself all manner of things, however, and nothing quite distinctly. Whether He were a Magus or a hero, an angel, after the religion of the land, or a divine apparition,—it now seemed very possible to him that there might be something super-terrestrial in the appearance of the Man;—and he had so unconcernedly caused Him to be scourged. In any case, celestial vengeance seemed to threaten him. Whether the πόθεν, etc., is timid (Meyer) or cautiously sifting, is difficult to decide; fear and prudence may be united in it.

No answer [Ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦδ ].—Luthardt: He would not answer him, in order that He might not step in the way of God’s will. An abstractly supernaturalistic view. If the answer had been a moral duty, no religious duty would have stood in the way of it. God had power, notwithstanding any answer of His, to accomplish His will. Under such a supposition as Luthardt’s, Jesus would in no case have dared answer anything. He was silent, “as also before Herod and Caiaphas, because He had already testified enough for the susceptible; and for him who had turned his back upon the King of truth, neither could another testimony avail.” Tholuck. Jesus could foresee that this transaction led to nothing. Pilate, with his question, abandoned his judicial position, for he was bound to acquit Jesus not on account of His danger-menacing Godhead, but on account of His protection-demanding human innocence. [Alford: “This silence was the most emphatic answer to all who had ears to hear it,—was a reference to what He had said before, John 18:37, and so a witness to His divine origin. Would any mere man, of true and upright character, have refused an answer to such a question, so put? Let the modern rationalist consider this.”—P. S.]

John 19:10. Dost Thou not speak unto me? [ἐμοὶ οὐ λαλεῖς].—Himself full of fear, he exacted considerations of fear from Jesus. He boasts of his power [ἐ ξουσίαν ἔχω] instead of remembering his duty, and of his freedom to release Jesus [ἀπολῦαί σε], while the weight of temptation, drives him in his impotence resistlessly forward. Ἐμοί has the emphasis of offended authority [pride of office], making efforts at once terrifying and alluring. Crucify, release, a more probable sequence than the converse. See the Textual Notes. [The opposite order is better attested by external authority (א. A. B., etc.), and more natural, as releasing appeals more to the prisoner, and crucifying follows as the other alternative.—P. S.]

John 19:11. No power over Me unless it had been given, etc. [οὐκ ἔχεις ἐξουσίαν οὐδεμίαν κατ’ ἐμοῦ, εἰ μὴ ἦν σοι δεδομένον ἄνωθεν].—δεδομένον. Namely, the exercise of power—if that had not been given thee. [The neuter is more general than δεδομένη, and includes, as Meyer says, τὸ ἐξουσιάζειν κατ’ ἐμοῦ.—P. S.].—From above.—Not: from the Roman emperor (Usteri), or from the Sanhedrin (Semler), but from God (John 3:3; John 3:31). [Grotius aptly: inde scilicet, unde ortus sum; ἄνωθεν is a precise anwer to the πόθεν of Pilate (John 19:10). It is equivalent to ἐκ θεοῦ or ἐκ τοῦ πατρός μου, but this Pilate would not have understood.—P. S.].—No power.—Ἐξουσία is interpreted:

1. As judicial authority, by Luther, Calvin, Baur and others. Thus, because thou hast this authority from above, the misuse of it is sin; the authors of this offence, however, the Jews, have the greater guilt.2. Actual power, Beza, Gerhard, Tholuck: It is the providence of God that I, through the obduracy of My people, have fallen into thy hands. With this interpretation the διὰ τοῦτο [on this account, because of the power being given thee] is certainly better explained, yet this actual power rests upon the magisterial authority.

He that delivereth Me unto thee; ὁ παραδιδούς [the present, because the act is just going on].—Bengel, Meyer [Lampe, Alford, Ewald, Hengstenberg]: The high-priest [Caiaphas]; Tholuck collectively: The hardened Jewish nation. [Still others the Sanhedrin; some, unaptly, Judas who is now out of sight]. The declaration of Pilate John 19:35 is pertinent: Thy nation and the high-priests have delivered Thee unto me. Wherefore has the deliverer (ὁ παραδιδούς) the greater sin [μείζονα ἁμαρτίαν ἔχει]? Explanations:

1. Euthymius: Pilate’s guilt rests more upon softness and weakness.2. Grotius: Because he could not know, as well as the Jews, who Christ was.3. Lampe: Because the Jews had not received this power from God.4. Meyer: Because thou hast the disposal of Me not from any sovereign power of thine own, but by divine authorization.

But the abuse of his judicial authority does not excuse him. Decisive in the first place is the fact that Pilate is an ignorant Gentile, the deliverer Jewish; then, that the Jews claim, with a certain legal title, that he has but to execute their sentence. Pilate found himself in no clear position. He had to do, not with a Roman, but with a Jew, and not with a civil law, but with a religious accusation in regard to which the Jewish tribunal had already decided. This might readily mislead him in his simple judicial duty, and it was his fatality. His guilt would be still less than it really was, had he not been aware that they had delivered Jesus for envy, had not Jesus made so strong an impression on him, and had he not really known it to be his duty to release Him. Even in the case of the Jews there was also taken into account a consideration of excuse because of ignorance, which consideration exhibited the guilt of many of them as other than final obduracy. See Acts 3:17; comp. Luke 23:34. Meyer, in a note [p. 621], has with reason set aside the interpretation of Baur.

John 19:12. For the sake of this; ἐκ τούτυ.—Not: from thenceforth [E. V. and most commentators], but: for the sake of this saying [Meyer, Stier, Luthardt, comp. John 6:66.—P. S.]. It cast a bright accidental light upon his obscure, fateful, perilous situation, that for an instant marked the path of duty as a path of deliverance.—Pilate sought to release Him.—Ἐζήτει certainly cannot denote simply an increased striving (Lücke), it being expressive of a distinct act immediately provocative of the most excited outburst on the part of the Jews. But the interpretation: he demanded that He should be released (Meyer), gives rise to the supposition that Pilate must needs ask the Jews’ sanction to the release of Jesus. This word, to which not sufficient regard is paid, means rather: he was really on the point of ordering the release of Christ. Perhaps he caused the guard to fall back, or he may hare stated to the Jews that they might go home, that he would leave Jesus behind in the prætorium, under his own protection. At all events, here it is that the tragic knot was tied. The liberation of Jesus seems already decided.

But the Jews cried out, saying.—Now, in the uproar of the Jews, the whole storm of hell rises. At first the high-priests and officers led the voices,—now the entire mass is full of excitement and needs no starter. The demoniacal syllogism with which they debauch Pilate, scarcely originates, however, in the brain of the populace. The hierarchs take refuge in the political accusation, declaring Jesus is a revolutionist against the emperor, and if thou let Him go, thou comest thyself under suspicion of treason to the emperor. Now the emperor was—Tiberius. The threat of being accused to this man of treason fells the weak courtling. On Pilate as manifoldly guilty, especially of extortions and outrages: Joseph., Antiq. XVIII. 3, 1 ff.; Philo, De leg. ad Caj., 1033, on the suspicious character of Tiberius, Sueton., Tib., 58; Tacit., Ann., III.38. Majestatis crimen omnium accusationum complementum erat.—φίλος Καί σαρος, a predicate of honor, since the time of Augustus conferred, by the emperor himself and by others, partly upon prefects and legates, partly upon allies (Ernesti, Suetonius, Excurs. 15).” Tholuck. According to Meyer [and Alford], the term means simply: loyal to the emperor; unfavorable to this view is the technical use of the predicate: amicus Cæsaris. Even if Pilate did not formally possess the title, it is alluded to.—Speaketh against—is at variance with—the emperor (ἀντιλέγει). Meyer: He declareth against the emperor, not: he rebelleth (Kuinoel), etc. But rebelling is exactly what declaring against the sovereign means.

John 19:13. When Pilate therefore heard these words.—Pilate’s playing with the situation is past; now the situation plays with him. First he said—not asked—: what is truth? Now his frightened heart, to which the emperor’s favor is the supreme law of life, says: what is justice? “He who fears not God above all things, is condemned to fear man.” Tholuck.1—He brought Jesus forth.—Since the last examination, John 19:8 ff., he had left Him in the pretorium.—And sat down in the judgment-seat [ἐκάθισεν ἐπὶ βήματος εἰς τόπ νλεγόμενον λιθόστρωτον].—“Sentence was pronounced sub divo, not ex æquo loco, but superiore; there stood the judgment-seat on a floor of mosaic: pavimentum, tessellatum (Sueton. Cæsar, chap. 46).” Tholuck. [Such a tesselated pavement Julius Cæsar carried about on his expeditions, Suet. Cæs., c. 46.]—But in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.—“The name Ταββ. must not be derived from גִבְעָה, hill [so Hengstenberg],—against which derivation the double β would militate (comp. ταβαθᾶ, Jos. Antiq. V. 1, 29), but from גַּב, ridge, hump.” Meyer. Is it not, perhaps, still more probably an Aramaic modification of גָּבֹהַּ, altum, altitudo? [Alford from נָּבָה, altus fuit, Ewald from the root גָּבַע with a signification similar to λιθόστρωτον—P. S.]

John 19:14. It was the preparation-day,—Παρασκευἠ τοῦ πάσχα, see Comm. on Matt. [pp 455, 468]; John on chap. 13 [p. 405].

1. Friday in the passover-season, or paschal week, as a day of preparation for the Sabbath. Wieseler, p 336 f; Wichelhaus, p. 209 f. Only apparently a modification is Tholuck’s explanation: The Paschal preparation-day as the preparation for the Sabbath falling in the Paschal season; since the terms Friday and Sabbath preparation-day were of necessity synonymous to the Jews, just as to the Germans the terms Samstag and Sonnabend are.

[This is the correct view, and is maintained also by Olshausen, Luthardt, Hengstenberg, Riggenbach, Robinson (Harmony, p. 219). The term παρασκευή here does not correspond (as Meyer, Lücke, Alford and others assert) to the Hebrew עֶרֶב הַפֶּסַח, “the vigil of the Passover,” “passover-eve” (mentioned in the Talmud, see Buxtorf, Lex., p. 1765, but nowhere in the Bible), but to עַרוּבְתָא, eve, as being the עֶרֶב הַשַׁבָּת, eve of the Sabbath (see Buxtorf, Lex., p. 1659). It is equivalent to προσάββατον, fore-sabbath (Mark 15:42; Jdt 8:6), or προεόρτιον, as Philo (De vita contempl., p. 616) calls it. In other words, it is a technical Jewish name for Friday, just as the corresponding terms in the Syriac and Arabic, and as the German Sonnabend (Sunday-Eve) is used for Samstag (Saturday). It was so called from the Jewish habit of preparing the meals (הכין, παρασκευάζειν) on Friday for the Sabbath, since it was forbidden to kindle a fire on the Sabbath (Ex. xvi.5; Joseph. Antiq. XVI. 6, 2). This is the uniform meaning of παρασκευή in all other passages of the New Testament where it occurs, viz., in this very chapter, John 19:31-32; Matthew 27:62; Luke 23:54; Mark 15:42 (where it is expressly explained for non-Jewish readers, as being=προσάββατον). Why should our passage be an exception? The addition τοῦ πάσχα, which John always uses in the wider sense for the whole feast (not for the eating of the paschal lamb), makes no difference: it is simply the Paschal Friday, or Easter-Friday, as we speak of Easter-Sunday, Easter-Monday, Easter-Tuesday.2 We have here a very significant hint that after all John is in perfect harmony with the Synoptists on the day of Christ’s death, which was not the 14th, but the 15th of Nisan, or the first day of the paschal festival. John, probably chose this very term to expose the awful inconsistency and crime of the Jews in putting the Lord and Saviour to death on the day when they should have prepared for the holy Sabbath—doubly sacred now as being at the same time the first day of the great passover.—P. S.]

John 2:0 : Meyer following Lücke, Bleek, etc. [p. 623, comp. pp. 600 seq., 5th ed., where the discussions are]: “In order that the παρασκωυή might not be apprehended as the weekly one, referable to the Sabbath (John 19:31; John 19:42; Luke 23:54; Mark 15:42; Matthew 27:62; Joseph. Antiq. XVI. 6, 2 al.), but that it might be regarded as connected with the feast-day of the Passover, John expressly adds τοῦ πασχα. Undoubtedly it was a Friday, consequently Preparation-day for the Sabbath also—this reference, however, is not the one to be pointed out here; the true reference is to the paschal feast coming in on the evening of the day,—of which feast the first day fell, according to John, upon the Sabbath.” [So also Alford.]

This view is contradicted:

(1) By the fact that in that case John would, shortly after, John 19:31 [ἐπεὶ παρασκευή ἦν, and John 19:42, διὰ τὴν παρασκευὴν τῶν Ἰουδ.], have used the word παρασκευὴ in another sense.

(2) That he then in John 19:31 would have been obliged to write παρασκευὴ τοῦ σαββάτου3 in order to distinguish between the two senses.

(3) That, therefore, according to John 19:31; John 19:42, παρασκευή had a thoroughly fixed signification and denoted the day of preparation for the Sabbath, in consequence of which fact, therefore, the παρασκευή τοῦ πάσχα is also to be interpreted as the day of preparation for the Sabbath of the paschal season.

(4) That John elsewhere uses the word πάσχα as a term for the ἑορτή, the paschal season. So, expressly, John 2:23; John 6:4; John 11:55-56; John 18:39. And hence, assuredly, also here.

It was going on towards the [es war gegen die] sixth hour [ὤρα ἦν ὡς ἕκτη. This is the correct reading instead of ὤρα δε ὡσεὶ ἕκτη—P. S.]—See Note on John 1:39 [p. 93]; Comm. on Matthew at this passage [Matthew 27:45, p. 525, Am. ed.]; Mark [John 15:25, p. 152]. According to Jewish reckoning it was on the way to 12 o’clock, i.e., between 9 and 12 o’clock. On the difficulty of this notice, see the passages cited. [The difficulty is this, that according to John the hour of crucifixion was the sixth, i.e., (counting with the Jews from sunrise) 12 o’clock of our time; while according to Mark 15:25 it was the third, i.e., 9 o’clock, A. M., with which the statement of Matthew 27:45, and Luke 23:44, agrees, that at the sixth hour or noon, when Jesus had already for some time been hanging on the cross, darkness covered the land for three hours, and that Jesus died about the ninth hour (i.e., 3 P.M.); consequently according to the Synoptists the Saviour suffered for nearly six hours on the cross, according to John only about three hours.—P. S.] Solutions of the apparent contradiction:

1. Assumption of a writing-error (Euseb. and others): ς [6], instead of γ [3].

[So also Theophylact, Severus, Beza (ed. 5th), Bengel, Alford, Robinson, Harmony, p. 226, where Robinson says: “The ὥρα τρίτη of Mark, as the hour of crucifixion, is sustained by the whole course of the transactions and circumstances; as also by the fact stated by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that the darkness commenced at the sixth hour, after Jesus had already for some time hung upon the cross. The reading ἕκτη in John is, therefore, probably an early error of transcription for τρίτη (ς for Γ). Indeed, this last reading is found in Cod. Bezæ and Cod. Reg. 62, as well as several other authorities; so that its external weight is marked by Griesbach as nearly or quite equal to that of the common reading, while the internal evidence in its favor is certainly far greater.” But ἕκτη is undoubtedly the correct reading as far as external authority goes. See Text. Note, and Tischend. ed. VIII. in loc.—P. S.]

2. Roman reckoning is employed=6 A. M. (Rettig, Tholuck, Hug, and others). [So also Olshausen, Wieseler, Ewald, Townson, Wordsworth.—P. S.] But after the examination before Caiaphas, the first examination before Pilate, the examination before Herod (Luke 23:9), the further proceedings in Pilate’s presence, the scourging and mocking, it is impossible that it was only approaching or about 6 o’clock in the morning, since the final session in presence of Caiaphas did of itself presuppose the dawn of day, to make it legal. [Besides, this view creates the difficulty of too long a period (three hours) intervening between the sentence of death and the crucifixion. It is also very unlikely that John, with the Synoptical statements before him, should without any notice have introduced a different mode of reckoning, and with it an element of confusion rather than rectification.—P. S.]

3. It was about the sixth hour of the paschal feast, reckoned from midnight (Hofmann, Lichtenstein).4 The passover, however, did not begin at midnight, but on the previous evening at about 6 o’clock; irrespective of the fact that this “would be an unprecedented way of reckoning hours, namely as belonging to the feast, not to the day (in opposition to John 1:39; John 4:6; John 4:52).” Meyer.

4. “Again a difference from the Synoptists, according to whom (see Mark 15:25, with which Matthew 27:45; Luke 23:44 agree) Jesus is crucified as early as 9 o’clock in the morning.” (Meyer and others.)

5. The third hour of Mark is the third quarter of the day (Aret., Grot. [Calvin, Wetstein], and others), against which Mark 15:33. [“And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried,” etc.]

6. An indefinite computation of hours, according to which the sections of time between the third, sixth and ninth hours are indefinitely stated. Thus the third hour in Mark may mean: nine o’clock was past,—it was between nine and twelve o’clock when the crucifixion of Christ began; and this is the more probable since Mark regards the scourging as the prelude to the crucifixion, which, when the former took place, was really already decided (see John 19:15). And so the words of John: it was towards the sixth hour: it was past nine o’clock and approaching noon when Pilate—the scourging being accomplished, and the Scourged One having been presented to the populace—spoke the final words upon which the procession to Golgotha immediately followed. John’s employment of the later indefinite hour-date is accounted for by the thought; they now hastened to the close, because, with noon, the second, already more Sabbatic, half of the παρασκευή was approaching. Mark’s choice, on the other hand, of the earlier indefinite hour-date is accounted for by the significant antithesis which he wishes to institute between the third and the sixth hour.

[This solution of the difficulty has been adopted by Godet, who remarks that the apostles did not count with the watch in their hands. So also Hengstenberg, who, however, very mechanically splits the difference and fixes the crucifixion at half-past ten! In this case the statements both of Mark and John would be wrong. Meyer rejects all attempts at reconciliation and gives John the preference over the Synoptists. But Lange’s view has a strong support in the ὡς or ὡσεὶ of John, which excludes strict accuracy on his part and leaves room for some approach at least towards the third hour of Mark. At noon Christ must certainly have been already hanging on the cross; for this is the unanimous testimony of the Synoptists.—P. S.]

Behold, your king [Ἴδε ὁ βασιλεὺς ὑμῶν]!—Pilate, inwardly overcome, designs, by this mocking of the Jews, not only to mask his disgrace but also to avenge it; it may be that these words unfold even this threatening thought: your King, then, shall first be crucified, and after Him, yourselves. At all events, he shifts the guilt to their shoulders.

John 19:15. Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him [Ἆρον ἆρον, σταύ ρωσον αὐτόν]!—The words: ἆρον, ἆρον!5 present to us something more than the meaning: Away with Him! away with Him! At this last moment there is still a mutual effort to shuffle off the legal responsibility upon each other. Pilate’s meaning is: if He is to be executed, ye may execute Him. The meaning of the Jews is: thou shalt have Him, thou shalt crucify Him! It was only in this way that they could be assured of Pilate’s inability to institute later a review of the proceedings. The Hierarchs make the same claim again at the present day: the rude State, the Pilate of the Middle Ages, adjusted the terrors of the Inquisition in accordance with the laws then existing. The brief, passionate exclamation is likewise expressive of the bitterness called forth by the word of Pilate: Behold, your King!

Shall I crucify your king?—This question of Pilate is an intimation of his last wavering in resolve—a wavering in all probability particularly induced by the message of his wife. See Comm. on Matthew. Not merely a “reverberation” of the preceding derisive words, but also a distincter expression of the same idea: If He is to be crucified as your King in your sense, He must, according to your law, die as a religious criminal. Hence the high-priest’s reply.

We have no king but the emperor [Οὐκ ἔχομεν βασιλέα εἰ μὴ Καίσαρα].—i.e. He shall and must die as a political seditionary. At the same time it is the consummation of the godless perfidy with which they disclaim their own Messianic hope, deny the Messianic claims, traduce the Lord as a seditionary, whilst they themselves feign a zeal of the most loyal fidelity demonstrable by subjects, with which they would fain shame and terrify even the Roman governor. [Some of these very men who here made a hypocritical show of loyalty to carry their point and to make a tool of Pilate, perished afterwards miserably in rebellion against Cæsar. Bengel: Jesum negant usque eo, ut omnino Christum negant. Alford: “A degrading confession from the chief priests of that people of whom it was said, ‘The Lord your God is your King,’ 1 Samuel 12:12.”—P. S.]

John 19:16. Then therefore he delivered Him up unto them, to be crucified.—The repeated threatening hint of the high-priest completes the conquest of Pilate. A compromise results, in pursuance of which Christ is delivered (παρέδωκεν not simply yielded, after Grotius and others) to the high-priests, to be taken to their place of execution, and is, nevertheless, crucified by Roman soldiers, according to Roman criminal law. It is to be presumed that Pilate combined the delivery of Jesus to the Jews with the symbolical act of washing his hands (according to Matthew). This compromise is one of the many legal contradictions in the history of the crucifixion, by means of which contradictions the summum jus of the ancient world is converted into the summa injuria. Comp. Comm. on Matthew, Matthew 27:22 [pp. 512, 514, Am. Ed.]. Other contradictions: Declared innocent, and yet sent before another tribunal, and yet scourged. Scourged in order that He might be released, and yet afterwards crucified. Contradictions of the forum, of sentence, of cognizance, of the degree of punishment, of the form of punishment.

They therefore took Jesus [παρέλαβον οὖν τὸν Ἰησοῦν. John 19:16 ought to close with σταυρωθῇ, and παρέλαβον begin the next section. So Tischendorf, Alford, Westcott and Hort.—P. S.] The high-priests, not (as De Wette thinks) the soldiers.—And led Him away [καὶ

Very doubtful, see Text. Notes.—P. S.] The taking was also consummated with the declaration: His blood be upon us, etc. (see Comm. on Matt.). On the site of Golgotha, outside of the city, see Comm. on Matt. [520 ff.] “The site of the place, without the city, is likewise attested by Hebrews 12:12.” Tholuck.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. By many supplementary touches John presents us with the clearest view of the incidents of the secular trial undergone by Jesus. To these supplementary traits belongs, above all, the gradation of the Jews’ accusation.

(1) They charge Jesus with being an ecclesiastical criminal whom they have already sentenced, and whose sentence Pilate has but to confirm. (2) In the most ambiguous sense: With making Himself the King of the Jews. (3) With being an ecclesiastical criminal,—because He had made Himself the Son of God. (4) With being a political revolutionist,—because He claimed to be the King of the Jews.These form two accusations which they alternately bring forward: a Jewish one and a Roman political one. The first time each is couched in ambiguous and innuendo-like terms; the second time each is formulated in calumnious audacity.

Another of these supplementary traits is the conflict maintained between Pilate and the high-priests throughout the entire procedure—a conflict in which the personal character of Pilate, as well as that of the high-priests, is most clearly reflected; as is also the more general character of a vain, worldly state-craft in its haughty and nevertheless impotent struggle with a crafty hierarchical power and its fanatical tools in the popular life. Then those moments also stand out clearly, in which Christ is, as a delinquent, by the Jews delivered to, or pressed upon, Pilate; by Pilate delivered to, or pressed upon, the Jews,—down to the moment when a kind of compromise is effected. From John 18:28-31 Pilate refuses judgment. From John 18:32-38 he receives the Accused, granting Him a pre-examination; then, however, he does not simply acquit Him, but seeks to entrap the Jews and, by the offer of presenting Jesus to them for their paschal procession, which was annually graced by some recipient of governmental pardon, to move them to acquit Him with éclat. Pilate then for the second time receives Jesus, in order, for the gratification of the Jews, to perpetrate upon Him a police execution that was destitute of all judicial grounds,—viz. the scourging.

The expression Ecce Homo contains another return of the person of Jesus to the Jews. For the third time Pilate enters into judgment with Jesus upon the accusation: He made Himself the Son of God. He now designs setting Him free himself, but the Jews weaken his purpose by a threat accompanied with tumult; and he is now inwardly so discomfited that the last time he does not simply deliver the Accused to the Jews—he delivers Him under sentence of crucifixion, purposing a formal participation in the affair himself, while the Jews are to assume, and really do assume, the actual execution and responsibility of it. Both these facts are summed up in the words: “He delivered Him unto them that He might be crucified.” As regards the contrasts of conduct, the stately, artificial repose of Pilate is overcome by cringing sub-missiveness; his political calculation by demoniacal craft and pertinacity; his effort of conscience by audacious menace; his attempt to turn the accusers into ridicule by treating them scornfully and mocking them, by fanatic popular agitation and a revolutionary, tumultuous petition, masking itself in pure zeal for the authority of the emperor.

The individual items for which, as new disclosures, thanks are due to John, are

a. The competence strife in regard to the trial;

b. The analysis of the ambiguous expression, King of the Jews, by the wisdom of the Lord—making manifest the vileness of the high-priests and the felony to the Messianic idea, of which they are guilty;

c. The antithesis of the Kingdom of Truth and the kingdom of this world, and the utterance of Pilate;

d. The circumstance that it is pre-eminently the Jews who are guilty of bringing the Lord into juxtaposition with Barabbas;

e. The real purpose of the scourging;

f. The effect which the charge that Jesus made Himself the Son of God, produced upon the soul of Pilate—the anguish of superstition, following hard upon the self-upliftment of unbelief;

g. The innuendo-like threat of the Jews to accuse Pilate to the emperor—as the weapon that prostrates him (Pilate);

h. The double masking: The rebellion of the Jews against their King and against the emperor’s governor, in the mask of the most faithful Jewish piety and Roman subjection; Pilate’s dejection, in the mask of a stately session for judgment, and a derisive treatment of the accusers and the whole Jewish nation;

i. The share of both—Pilate and the Jews—in the crucifixion.

John, in the close unity of his presentation, has however passed over, together with minor features, the trial in the morning (Matthew 27:1); the dream of Pilate’s wife (Matthew 27:19); Pilate’s washing of his hands, and the self-execration of the Jews (Matthew 27:24-25); the reed (Matthew 27:29); and the bespitting on the part of the soldiers (Matthew 27:30). Similarly, the sending of Jesus to Herod, and the resultant friendship of Herod and Pilate (Luke 23:6-12); finally, the notice that Barabbas had perpetrated a sedition in the city (Mark, Luke).

2. The joint implication of a hierarchical Church and a despotic State in the guilt of Christ’s execution under pretext of His being a religious criminal:

(1) In losing the right of inflicting capital punishment, the hierarchs should have recognized the fact that their discipline could extend no further than to excommunication (Matthew 18:17). (2) With the assumption of rule over different national religions, the Roman State should have been constrained to penetrate to a purely political position and a distinction of matters religious and political,—to a principle of which the better men already had a presentiment (Acts 18:14-15). The two principles, however, the religious and the political, continue, on the one hand, involved, and, therefore, on the other hand, strained, because the Jewish hierarchy has not purified itself to a pure conception of the Church, nor the Roman power to a pure conception of the State.

This mingling of State and Church has been repeated from the time of Constantine, increasing more and more in the Middle Ages until the arrival of the Reformation. It still continues in the Greek economy of State and Church (Cæsaropapism), likewise in the Roman Ecclesiastical State,6 as, partially, in the other Catholic States (Papal-Cæsarism). Christ and Christianity have always had to suffer under this confusion, the ground of which is a want of respect for the religious conscience.

(2) In taking for granted that disagreeable religious tendencies are to be punished, the hierarchy is fain to shuffle off the execution of punishment upon the despotism, the latter to shift the responsibility of punishment upon the hierarchy.

(3) Afterwards they both seek to excuse themselves; Pilate writes: “The King of the Jews,” i.e. a religious motive has brought Him to the cross. The hierarchs wish the inscription to read: “He said that,” i.e. He is a misleader of the people, and a disturber;—the motive is a political one.

In a similar manner ultramontane authors now try to impute the execution of heretics to the State of the Middle Ages.(4) Pilate constituted himself and his Roman authority constable of the hierarchy, and from this time forth he rushes to perdition. Similar was the fate of the Maccabean house, and, since then, of several European dynasties. The clean sunderment of Church and State is a vital impulse of the spirit of Christianity, one of the greatest tasks of Christian times. See the author’s essay: Ueber die Neugestaltung des Verhältnisses zwischen Kirche und Staat. Heidelberg, 1.

3. The fearful treason of the Jews to their Messianic idea, consummated in the ambiguous accusation: “Jesus is the King of the Jews.” A similar felony was committed by Josephus in applying the Messianic predictions of the Old Testament to Vespasian, De Bello Jud., VI. 5, 4. See Gieseler, p. 47.

4. The world-historical encounter of the Spirit of Christ with the genius of the Roman nation on the occasion of the discourse concerning His kingdom (see Exeg. Notes; and my Leben Jesu, II. 1508); analogous to His encounter with the genius of the Greek nation, John 12:20 ff.

5. Christ’s kingdom not of this world, but in this world, for it and over it. Christ the King in the Kingdom of Truth.

6. The question of Pilate no question, but a frivolous, unbelieving utterance. Characteristic of the Græco-Roman world-culture of his time.

7. Pilate surrendered truth first, and afterwards justice,—in consequence.

8. Ecce Homo. The scourging of Christ is intended by Pilate to save His life and, hence, to be an act of humanity. But as that governor’s official administration is without consistency, his justice without any foundation of truth, his wit without wisdom, so his humanity is destitute of the fear of God, of strength and of blessing. Such a humanitarian idea gave issue to the African slave trade.

9. Pilate’s superstitious fear at the saying: “Jesus made Himself the Son of God,”—a characteristic trait of the unbeliever. The indissoluble connection between unbelief and superstition. But after all, unbelieving Pilate is more believing than the superstitious high-priests in the consummate unbelief with which they reject Christ. Of the threefold terror of Pilate: his terror at the law, his terror of conscience, his religious terror—there appears no trace in these practical atheists, who have donned the mask of the holiest zeal.10. The greater sins of the high-priests. Christ’s sympathy with the judicial fate of the weak Pilate. In this, Christ’s sentence upon Pilate, there lies a stronger Ecce Homo! than in the exclamation of Pilate. Ecce Homo—who believes he is administering divine government and justice, and stands impotent—the tool of divine judgment, destined himself to be the prey of judgment.

11. Ecclesiastical and political masks. See No. 1.12. The hierarchy here begets a revolution and allies itself to the same, with a view to shaking the political authority. Hierarchy, popular insurrection, and political authority, in wicked alliance, sentence the King of the Kingdom of God and Protector of all holy order and authority, the High-priest and true Friend of the people, to death upon the cross, as a kindler of rebellion. See Leben Jesu, II. 1533.

13. No King but the Emperor. In that hour the besotted nation did, with hypocritical fanaticism, renounce, not its Messiah only, but also its Messianic hope, cherishing in its heart meanwhile rebellion against the emperor and the hope of a political Messiah. Yet even this judgment of hardening must, according to Romans 9:0, redound to the salvation of the world—the Gentile world, primarily.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See the Doctrinal Notes, and Comm. on Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Christ at once being judged by, and judging, the world.—Christ at the bar of the Roman State.—Christ before Pilate, and Pilate before Christ.—How Christ’s glance pierced through all the mazes of judgment: 1. Through all entanglements, to the right; 2. through all concealments and misrepresentations, to the bottom; 3. through all ambiguities, to the purpose; 4. through all waverings, to the issue.—How the judgment upon the Lord judgeth itself: 1. In its accusations; 2. in its examinations; 3. in the motives for its sentence.—The grave sign in the fact that the great prospect that existed of Christ’s acquittal was immediately blighted: 1. The great prospect: a. Pilate at first repulses the accusers. b. He nevertheless holds the examination and declares the innocence of Jesus, c. He tries to adjust the matter with the scourging. d. He is convulsed with religious awe and already proceeds to release Jesus. 2. Blighted: a. By the stratagem of hypocrites; b. the audacity of fanaticism; c. the impotence and guilty consciousness of Pilate; d. the rule of Tiberius; e. the plots of Satan; f. the providence and judgment of God. 3. The grave sign: a. Of the depravity of the world; b. of the magnitude of human unrighteousness; c. of the majesty of divine righteousness; d. of the fixedness and depth of the Redemption.—As Roman State-spirit delivered the Lord Christ Himself to the will of the Hierarchy, so it subsequently pursued the same course with Christianity.—The light of the calm majesty of Christ alone illumines the dark scene of His condemnation.

Section First—John 18:28-40. The cunningly calculated appearing of the accusers: 1. Hypocritical: they keep the legal Passover holy, to the end that they may the more surely deliver up the true Paschal Lamb to the Gentiles; 2. Dissembling, naïve: they make as if the sentence were already decided; Pilate has nothing to do but to set the great seal to it; 3. Truckling: “we may not put any man to death;” 4. Slanderously and disclaimingly shameless: they design to entrap Pilate with the ambiguous phrase: “the King of the Jews;” 5. Crafty, bold: they choose a mob-hero, Barabbas, who has made a sedition (probably against the Roman authorities).—The competence conflict, or the embroilments between the Hierarchy and the despotic State, and the ultimate, wicked peace.—The counter-question of Christ (John 18:34) a word of the heavenly Judge (for instruction): 1. For the elucidation of the matter; 2. for the warning of Pilate; 3. for the illumination of the accusers.—The Roman interrogation: What hast Thou done?—The declaration of Jesus: My kingdom is not of this world: 1. As defence; 2. as accusation.—The kingdom of Christ in its spiritualness and heavenliness: 1. How it differs from the kingdom of the Romans 2:0. but also from the government of the Priests.—The royal confession: A King Amos 1:0.—The royal Kingdom of Truth: l. The Kingdom of the King: Truth in its profoundest essence, as a revelation of God; in its highest power, as the Gospel; in its broadest extent, as the uniting bond of all life; in its bodily appearance, as the Person of Christ. 2. The King of the Kingdom: Christ personal Truth itself, as the light centre of all life, thoroughly at one with itself, and therefore the Light of the world. 3. The title of the King: Perfect agreement of His birth and His mission (His office); His ideal and His historical vocation. 4. His government: The faithful Witness, with His testimony; the Host-leader of all faithful witnesses (martyrs). 5. Increase of the Kingdom: The Word received as His voice by all who are of the truth.—The word of Pilate: What is truth? 1. How word might have become the saving of his life (if he had spoken inquiringly and submitted himself to the answer); 2. How it became the judgment of his life (because he spoke it triflingly and scornfully, going out immediately.—What is truth? This question may be considered according to its divine meaning; 1. As the sneering exclamation of the impious scoffer; 2. as the mere declaration of a frivolous worldling (Pilate); 3. as the doubting question of an earnest investigator; 4. as the vital question of a longing heart.—The Pilate-question of the Roman spirit of tradition. (We must abide by the tradition, cried the Roman pagans to the Christians. How can ye think of such a thing as proclaiming new truths?) Pilate’s declaration without: I find no fault in Him; in connection with the preceding utterance: What is truth?—Pilate’s testimony to the innocence of Jesus. First attempt to release the Accused.—But it is your custom; How Pilate, with the first deviation from the right, had entered upon the road of calamity. Barabbas, see the Synoptists.

Section Second, Chap, John 19:1-16. The scourging of Christ, in respect to its two-fold signification: 1. In respect to Pilate’s intention (made prominent by John), it was to avert the crucifixion. 2. In respect to the actual result, it formed (according to the statement of the Synoptists) the beginning of the crucial sufferings of Christ.—Second attempt to release the Accused.—Lo there, the Man! 1. The word in the sense of Pilate. 2. The word in respect of its higher signification.—The second accusation in respect to its contradiction of the first in the sense of the accusers.—Pilate’s fear. Close connection between unbelief and superstition.—Second examination by Pilate, by reason of the charge: He made Himself the Son of God.—Jesus’ silence in the second examination by Pilate compared with His silence before Caiaphas.—The haughtiness in Pilate’s reproof (John 19:19), and the august-ness in the answer of Christ.—Christ sees even in the power of Pilate and its misuse, pre-eminently an instrument and a work of Divine Providence.—The greater and the less great sinners, or Jesus Himself in judgment, the holy Judge in righteousness and clemency.—Pilate’s resolution to release Jesus; or the last attempt, frustrated by the bold menace of the Jews. Why was it possible for this menace so to disturb him? 1. Because he was Pilate (on account of his extortions, destitute of a good conscience and of trust in God, and setting his earthly self-preservation above all things). 2. Because his sovereign was the emperor Tiberius (the cruel and suspicious tyrant who lent a ready ear to denunciations of all kinds). 3. Because he knew the Jewish priests (their deceitful cunning and fanatical boldness).—The priestly revolutionists with the bugbear of revolution in their mouths: 1. Revolutionists against the emperor (in their hearts;—against the authority of the governor). 2. Declaring Christ to be a revolutionist; And Pilate himself to be open to suspicion of this crime.—Gabbatha and Golgotha.—Pilate wraps himself in all the pomp of a judge, while his judicial dignity is drabbled in the dust.—The priests put on the mask of devotion to the emperor while they condemn their King to the cross.—The scoffs of a Pilate cannot break the power which the priests exercise over the blind populace.—Gentile-Roman policy overcome by the Jewish hierarchy.—The glory of Jerusalem and the glory of Rome sink away in one ordeal in which they judge the Lord of the world;—and with them the glory of Judaism and the glory of heathenism—the glory of the whole old world.—Agreement (concordance) of Pilate and the priests.—The suffering of the Lord in Pilate’s tribunal: 1. In view of Pilate tottering to his fall; 2. in view of the priests of His nation in their obduracy and craftiness; 3. in view of the delusion of the infatuated, raging people.—The temptation of Christ in these sufferings, and His victory.

Starke: To John 18:28-40. The Most Holy, in suffering Himself to be delivered into the hands of the uncircumcised, did thereby (take upon Himself the shame of our spiritual foreskin and) purpose to procure for us poor Gentiles a right to the citizenship of Israel.—How stiff-necked men still are in their superstition; and on the contrary, how secure and careless about that which is really in accordance with God’s word.—Hall: It is the way of all hypocrites to be exceedingly conscientious about things concerning which they really need have no scruples; but for things of which they should make scruple, they keep an accommodating conscience.—Cramer: It is a rickety proof—the pledging of one’s own authority in human affairs: We say so, therefore ‘tis true. Such are the vain-glorious,—they speak great blasphemy—slanders;—what they speak, must be spoken from heaven; what they say, must have weight on the earth, Psalms 73:8-9 [another variation in translation].—Quesnel: Judges should examine everything—and their own hearts more than all other things.—Christ’s kingdom and the emperor’s can well exist together. Worldly order and government are serviceable to the Church, and the Church, by her prayer and intercession, preserveth police and kingdom. Certainly: the better Christian, the better magistrate! the better Christian, the more blessed teacher! the better Christian, the more loyal subject!—True servants of Jesus must fight manfully for their King and His kingdom.—Bibl. Wirtemb.: Dear Christian, what if thou be poor, despised, rejected in the world? for all that, thou art a king; thy Saviour hath made thee one, Revelation 1:6; Revelation 5:10. The kingdom is prepared thee from the beginning of the world, Matthew 25:34—with this thought breast the devil and the world.—Zeisius: Let all thy words and works proceed from truth, if thou wilt be Christ’s subject, for thy King Christ is a King of Truth, Zechariah 8:19.—Ibid.: Politicians of the present day think with Pilate: What is truth? and hold such as suffer for its sake, to be fools, and, on the contrary, such as stoutly simulate, they account very clever and lucky.—Ibid.: So raging mad is the foolish and hardened world that it condemns the good and preserves the lives of the veriest knaves, preferring them, honoring them, and endowing them.—O what insane choice! a refractory subject is preferred to the King of Glory; a murderer, to the Prince of Life; a ravening wolf, to the Good Shepherd.—Cramer: As it is an abomination to God to wrong the righteous, so it is in like manner an abomination in His eyes not to punish archknaves.

Gerlach: The true King and the true Kingdom are the King and the Kingdom of Truth, Truth in the fullest, deepest sense (comp. John 1:14), according to which this word includes perfect essentiality, agreement with itself, holiness. Every king except the King of Truth, has a limited dominion, is at the same time a subject and servant; but God’s Truth and therefore His King and His Kingdom, are finally victorious over all opposition. On this very account, however, this dominion of Truth is no purely internal one, else it would not exercise sway over things external, and consequently it would itself be untrue, and not a thoroughly true, perfect dominion. All the kingdoms of the world shall servo this King when His testimony of the Truth shall have made all His foes His footstool. But every other weapon would itself be of falsehood and darkness. Christ was born such a King—in Him person and office are one—in this respect also He is nothing but Truth; and for this end He came into the world (of which He and His Kingdom arc not. John 18:36); His appearance, life and ministry have no other aim.—With the mid-day Sun in his face, Pilate shut his eyes and thought there was nothing but darkness about him. Christ stood before him, Himself the Truth, and he unbelievingly despaired of men’s ever being able to know the truth. Pilate’s question is no scoff, but the expression of the superficial, hopeless unbelief of a man of the world.

Braune: My kingdom, etc.; It twines its blessing around all kingdoms, all circumstances; it is the flying bee, clinging with quiet diligence to the fast-fading flowers and their perishable glory, that it may extract honey from them for its kingdom of the future, creating, meanwhile, not the slightest disturbance in the garden of the world. But it is likewise the great power that in all the migrations of nations, in great wars, and the ruins of the kingdoms of the world, proves itself active in advancing the eternal kingdom of peace. It will not be confined to the heart and the world of thought, but will be set up in the living spirit which gives proof of itself in all situations and which ought to prove itself Christian.—It is founded upon truth—God’s promises; it is erected by truth—testimony concerning them; it is enjoyed in truth—obedience towards them; truth is universally disseminated by it; in doctrine and life, ideas, feelings, words, deeds, relations, impulses, truth comes; vanity and falsehood are overcome.—“In the kingdoms of the world, the vanity, ambition and weakness of man are misused, roused and cherished, while truth in the conscience is hindered by unrighteousness. But in the kingdom of God, man’s conscience, his sense of truth, and the truth active in that sense, are aided as a drawing to eternity” (Rieger).—There are minds that ring loud and clear when the truth touches them, while others brought into contact with the truth continue dead and soundless. Purity of heart is the condition whereon depends clearness in the knowledge of God. The light-minded worldliness and dull skepticism of so-called culture lead to a despair of truth.

Gossner: They wish to make Christ a male-factor by means, simply, of their authority and office, which, notwithstanding, they had from Him alone. And He was constrained, and did will, to suffer it so to be. We will invert their proposition and say: Friend Pilate, if we were not malefactors, we would not have delivered the Innocent and Righteous One unto thee.—If we were not sinners, such things could and must never have befallen Christ.—With truth,—thought Pilate, like so many other men—a man does not get on in the world. The world shrugs its shoulders, saying: “Truth? Bah! A fellow can’t be so particular.”

Heubner: God’s people delivers up its Saviour, its Crown, the sum of all the promises, to the Gentiles to be executed. What a spirit is this in comparison with the spirit of the waiting, hoping fathers! It happens in the morning, at the approach of the holiest of feasts,—at a time when the spirit should clearly see the right. The priests were moved, we doubt not, with the desire to cover Jesus with infamy in the sight of the people.—Lavater: “Whenever a righteous person is sentenced and judged by an uncalled man, there stands a Jesus before Pilate.”—Rambach says of Pilate: It is laudable in him that he examines Jesus according to the rule: audiatur el altera pars,—that he himself makes the investigation, conversing undisturbedly with Christ alone.—The Kingdom of Christ is not worldly, but the kingdom of the world becometh Godly and Christly (Bengel).—The truth that Christ gives, is “truth unto a knowledge of the Father, truth unto an assurance of the forgiveness of sins, truth unto everlasting comfort through grace, truth and strength in godliness” (Rieger).—Truth’s seat is least of all at the courts of the great in this world. A king of France complained that though he had all things else in his kingdom and at his court, he yet did lack truth, people to tell him the plain, unvarnished truth (the same).—But what was the innocence which in Pilate’s eyes Jesus possessed? The innocence of a good-hearted fanatic.

Starke: On John 19:1-16. Bibl. Wirt. We must not do evil that good may come of it, Romans 3:8.—Zeisius: Let this: Lo, what a man! never depart out of thy thoughts; but let it be to thee a monition penitently to recognize the enormity of the sins wherewith thou broughtest thy Saviour to such a pass; a warning earnestly to guard against them henceforward, and a word of consolation, partly in view of the hideous picture of thine approaching death, partly for the time when the world shall make a spectacle and a monster of thee.—Quesnel: A judge must not terrify others with his power; but must be in fear himself on account of the power which he hath received from God, and look to it that he use it aright.—Zeisius: When we must suffer wrong, there is no better means of calming our souls and inspiring them with patience and consolation than by turning our eyes utterly away from secondary causes and fixing them on God, 2 Samuel 16:10; Luke 21:18-19.—One sin is indeed more grievous than another, and hence deserving of heavier punishment and condemnation, Ezekiel 16:51-52.—A frank confession of the truth hath great power and is never without blessing, Acts 24:25.—Satan knows how to take hold of every man in the place where he is weakest, 2 Samuel 11:2; John 13:2.—Satan understands making a masterly use of honor, consideration, favor, grace with great lords—with them he blinds the eyes of men and ensnares their hearts, thus bringing or keeping them under his dominion, John 12:43.—Hall: A carnally-minded man is more anxious for his bodily prosperity and temporal honor than for his soul.—Zeisius: It is a sorrowful fact that the servants of great lords are far more afraid of their masters, than of God’s displeasure; but cursed is the man that trusteth in men and, etc., Jeremiah 17:5 : Acts 5:29.—Truth is often made a mere laughing-stock,—yet the mocker must be defeated and truth victorious.

Gerlach: The heathen even, struck by the divine majesty of Jesus, must gain some inkling of the fact that He was really the Son of God—a fact, the presage of which augmented the sin of the high-priests and that of Pilate also.—Pilate nevertheless did not escape the fate that he here, by his sinful yieldingness, sought to avoid; three or four years after he was deposed by Vitellius, governor of Syria, and sent to Rome to answer to the charges of tyranny preferred against him by the Jews.—On John 18:15. With which they most solemnly renounce God, their King, and the Messiah whom they looked for from Him.—Lisco: Hence the question: Whence art Thou? i.e., art Thou really of divine descent? Jesus is silent, not willing to deny His divine origin and yet unable to instruct the unreceptive Pilate concerning the truth.—In mockery of their rebellious tendencies that longed for a king of their own, yet now rejected Him whom God sent them, Pilate asked: Shall I crucify your King? Whereupon the Jews, feigning devotion and loyalty, say: none but the emperor do we recognize as our king.

Braune: Thou art but the instrument of a supreme will—saith the Condemned unto the judge. It is the self-same thought of the Redeemer that He thus expressed to Peter (John 18:11)—Shall I not drink the cup My Father hath given Me? Here the Redeemer taketh His stand, even in the midst of the turbid tumult of Jewish passion and Gentile dissoluteness; the pure will of God remaineth serene for Him, as the sky letteth its blue be seen through clouds.—In the destruction of Jerusalem the blood of the fathers and the children flowed. And Pilate bore his load still earlier.

Gossner: That is a wicked pliancy men manifest when, like Pilate, to win people they yield the half of what they unjustly demand and consider that they discharge their duty inasmuch as they refuse the other half. Duty and fidelity towards God and one’s conscience cannot be divided, else infidelity is already an accomplished fact.—Let him that carrieth his head on high and refuseth to bow his neck beneath the lowly yoke of Christ, look often upon the thorn-crowned and scornéd head of his King.—O thou weak man! thou miserable judge! So oft dost thou publicly attest His innocence, and sufferest Him to be more and more cruelly maltreated, and even committest the innocent Lamb to the wolves again; instead of tearing Him from their clutches. Thou preachest unto deaf ears when thou discoursest to the wolves concerning the innocence of the Lamb.—He who yields once to godless, unscrupulous men and does their pleasure, must and will do it the second time, must do everything until their thirst is quenched.—Behold, what a man! how guiltless! and how wretched! So stood He there, the Only and Incomparable One, before His people! how must the angels have looked into it. And He, whither must He have looked, how must He have gazed up to His Father! how must His soul have prayed that eternal honor and glory might grow out of this, His disgrace.—Behold, that is the Man who restoreth men and maketh them again what man was in the beginning when he came from God’s hands. Behold, that is the Man, the God incarnate, who maketh men partakers in the divine nature; that is the perfect Man, for all others are men no longer—they can and shall, however, become men once more through Him.—It is noteworthy that God’s Son must die because He was God’s Son, and acknowledged and affirmed Himself lo be the Son of God.—A pious judge will never boast of his authority, for it is not, his, but belongs to justice and law.—Pilate vaunted his power so, and yet was so impotent, so tottering, that every wind, every menace, cast him to the ground and dispersed his power.—He was always endeavoring, always intending and never performing. The foes strive too, and strive more earnestly and more zealously than thou with thy half will.—But thou, O pious soul, when the world, when sin tempteth thee and provoketh thee to do something hostile to God and Jesus, do thou ask: Shall I crucify my King?

Heubner: Christ’s crown of thorns and the crowns of the princes of this world afford matter for careful comparison. In respect of outward appearance, the former is disgraceful and agonizing, and the latter gloriously radiant, envied; but in respect of reality, the former is bought with the wearer’s own blood, the latter purchased oft-times with the blood of subjects; the former a token of the utterly self-sacrificing, all sorrows-enduring Martyr, the latter a sign of ambition that gratifies itself only; the former wins salvation and freedom for the human race, the latter often bring woes and bondage upon men; the former beams eternally before God and leads to heavenly glory, the latter soon fade away and procure for those that wear them no honor in the presence of God, but frequently rejection from that presence. (Comp. Lavater Pontius Pil. iv. 21.)—Pilate is restless, he goes in and out.—Behold, what a man! Ecce Homo! Words of many meanings! (Comp. Lavater, Pontius Pilatus, iv. 24–78).—One of the choicest paintings in the Düsseldorf Gallery is (was) an Ecce homo with the Latin inscription: All this I did for thee; what doest thou for Me? Zinzendorf was greatly affected at the sight of this picture; he is minded that he would not be able himself to make much response to this query, and he prays his Saviour to pull him forcibly into the fellowship of His sufferings if he be inclined to remain without.

John 18:11. Pilate had encroached upon the rights of the heavenly Father, Jesus protects the honor of His Father. Even Pilate’s power Jesus recognizes as a divine ordinance. Everything is of God, even the power of an unjust authority. Good men are never delivered up to it unless God wills their delivery. A distinction must be made between the work of God and that of Pilate. The guilt of the High Council was greater than that of Pilate, because they had a better insight into religion, into God’s counsel and promise, Jesus’ deeds and holiness. At the same time the “greater sin” awards blame implicite to Pilate: he too had sin.—Earthly power is perilous; let not him who has it presume upon it, or him who has it not, desire it.—Luther, xvi. John 61: “The Jews said, we have no king, and their saying has come to be such earnest that they must (eternally?) be without a king.”

Krummacher. The Suffering Christ, a Passion Book. Bielefield, 1854 (Trans. into English by Samuel Jackson. Boston, 1868). Christ before Pilate.—Christ a King.—What is Truth?—The Lamb of God.—The Great Spectacle: Ecce Homo! etc., pp. 378–690.

[Craven; From Augustine: John 18:0 : John 18:28. O impious blindness! They feared to be defiled by the judgment hall of a foreign Prefect; to shed the blood of an innocent brother they feared not.

John 18:30. Ask the freed from unclean spirits, the blind who saw, the dead who came to life again, and, what is greater than, all, the fools who were made wise, and let them answer, whether Jesus was a malefactor. But they spoke, of whom He had Himself prophesied in the Psalms, They rewarded Me evil for good.

John 18:36. All that are born again in Christ, are made a kingdom not of this world. Thus hath God taken us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.

John 18:37. But when Christ bears witness to the truth, He bears witness to Himself; as He said above, I am the truth.—John 19:5. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the Man! as if to say, If ye envy the King, spare the outcast. Ignominy overflows, let envy subside.

John 18:11. So He answers. When He was silent, He was silent not as guilty or crafty, but as a sheep; when He answered, He taught as a shepherd.——From Chrysostom: Chap, John 18:0 : John 18:36. He means that He does not derive His kingdom from the same source that earthly kings do; but that He hath His sovereignty from above; inasmuch as He is not mere man, but far greater and more glorious than man; If My kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews; here He shows the weakness of an earthly kingdom, that it has its strength from its servants, whereas that higher kingdom is sufficient to itself, and wanting in nothing.—When He says, My kingdom is not from hence, He does not deprive the world of His government and superintendence, but only shows that His government is not human and corruptible.

John 19:7. They kill Him for the very reason for which they ought to have worshipped Him.

John 19:15. We have no king but Cæsar; With one accord they denied the kingdom of God, and God suffered them to fall into their own condemnation; for they rejected the kingdom of Christ, and called down upon their own heads that of Cæsar.——From Bede: John 19:2. Though the soldiers did this in mockery, yet to us their acts have a meaning; for by the crown of thorns is signified the taking of our sins upon Him, the thorns which the earth of our body brings forth; and the purple robe signifies the flesh crucified.——From Alcuin: Chap, 18. John 18:38. He did not wait to hear the reply, because he was unworthy to hear it.

From Theophylact: Chap. 18 John 18:36. He says, from hence, not here; because He reigns in the world, and carries on the government of it, and disposes all things according to His will; but His kingdom is not from below, but from above, and before all ages.

John 18:38. Pilate said unto Him, What is truth? For it had almost vanished from the world, and become unknown in consequence of the general unbelief.——From Herbert: Chap, 18 John 18:40.

Thou who condemnest Jewish hate,For choosing Barabbas, a murderer,Before the Lord of glory;Look back upon thine own estate,Call home thine eye (that busy wanderer)—That choice may be thy story.

[From Burkitt: Chap, 18. John 18:28. When persons are over-zealous for ceremonial observances, they are oftentimes too remiss with reference to moral duties.

John 18:29-30. When we lie under calumny and unjust imputation, we imitate Christ, who opened not His mouth but committed His cause to Him that judgeth uprightly. [He defended Himself before the High-Priest.]

John 18:36. It is a clear evidence that Christ’s kingdom is spiritual, inasmuch as it is not carried on by violence and force of arms, as worldly kingdoms are, but by spiritual means and methods.

John 18:37. Observe 1. The dominion and sovereignty of Jesus Christ,—He has a kingdom: My kingdom; 2. The condition and qualification of this kingdom, negatively expressed: not of this world; 3. The use and end of this kingdom, that the truth may have place among the children of men for their salvation: to this end was I born, and came into the world, to bear witness unto the truth; 4. The subjects of Christ’s kingdom declared: Everyone that is of the truth, heareth My voice.

John 18:38. “What is truth? A most noble and important question, had it been put forth with an honest heart, with a mind fairly disposed for information and satisfaction.

John 18:40. No persons, how wicked and vile soever, are so odious in the eyes of the enemies of God as Christ Himself was, and His friends and followers now are.—John 19:1. It is a vain apology for sin, when persons pretend that it was not committed with their own consent.

John 18:2-3. What they did in jest, God permitted to be done in earnest.

John 18:5. Thorns and briers shall the earth bring forth, Genesis 3:18. Christ, by His bitter and bloody sufferings, has turned all the curses of His people into crowns and blessings. In spite of all malice, innocence shall find some friends and abettors; rather than Christ shall want witnesses, Pilate’s month shall be opened for His justification.

John 18:6. The chief priests and elders “persuaded the multitude:” Woe be to the common people, when their guides and leaders are corrupt; and woe be unto them much more, if they follow their wicked and pernicious counsels.

John 18:7-8. Serious thoughts of a Deity will strike terror even into a natural conscience, especially when the sinner is following a course which his own judgment cannot approve.

John 18:10. It is the great sin and snare of men in power, to forget from Whom they derive their power, and to think that they may employ it as they please.

John 18:11. He that delivereth Me unto thee, hath the greater sin; the greater means of light and knowledge persons sin against, the more aggravated is their guilt, and the more heightened will be their condemnation.

John 18:12. Hypocrites within the pale of the visible church may be guilty of such tremendous acts of wickedness as the conscience of an Infidel and Pagan boggle at and protest against.—Conscience bids him spare, popularity bids him kill.

John 18:12-13. The natural consciences of men, and their innate notions of good and evil, may carry men on a great way in opposing that which is a bare-faced iniquity; but at last either fear or shame will over-rule, if there be not a superior and more noble principle.

[From M. Henry: Chap, John 18:28. Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment; They took this course that He might be put to death 1. More legally and regularly; 2. More safely; 3. With more reproach to Himself by the death of the cross; 4. With less reproach to them; thus many are more afraid of the scandal of an ill thing, than of the sin of it.—Two things are here observed concerning the prosecution: 1. Their policy and industry therein; 2. Their superstition and vile hypocrisy.

John 18:29. Looking upon Pilate as a magistrate, here are three things commendable in him: 1. His diligent and close application to business; men in public trusts must not love their ease; 2. His condescension to the humor of the people, and receding from the honor of his place, to gratify their scruples; he goes out to them; for when it is for good, we should become all things to all men; 3. His adherence to the rule of justice in demanding the accusation, suspecting the prosecution to be malicious.

John 18:31. If the Jews have no power to put any man to death, where is the sceptre? Yet they ask not, Where is the Shiloh?

John 18:32. Even they who designed the defeating of Christ’s sayings, beyond their intention were made serviceable to the fulfilling of them by an over-ruling hand of God.—It is likewise determined concerning us, though not discovered to us, what death we shall die, which should free us from all disquieting cares about that matter.

John 18:35. Am I a Jew? Good names often suffer for the sake of the bad men that wear them. It is sad, that when a Turk is suspected of dishonesty, he should ask, “What! do you take me for a Christian?”—Christ, in His religion, still suffers by those that are of His own nation, even the priests, that profess relation to Him, but do not live up to their profession.

John 18:36. My kingdom is not of this world; 1. Its rise is not from this world; it is not by succession, election, or conquest, but by the immediate and special designation of the divine will and counsel; 2. Its nature is not worldly; it is a kingdom within men; 3. Its guards and supports are not worldly; its weapons are spiritual; 4. Its tendency and design are not worldly; 5. Its subjects, though they are in the world, yet are not of the world.

John 18:37. The good confession which our Lord Jesus witnessed before Pontius Pilate, 1 Timothy 6:13.—Though Christ took upon Him the form of a servant, yet even then He justly claimed the honor and authority of a king.—Christ’s errand into, the world, and His business in the world, were to bear witness to the truth: 1. To reveal it, John 1:18; John 7:26; John 2:0. To confirm it, Romans 15:8—Learn 1. The foundation and power, the spirit and genius, of Christ’s kingdom, is truth, divine truth; 2. The subjects of this kingdom are those that are of the truth.

John 18:39. Pilate was willing to trim the matter and please all sides; and was governed more by worldly wisdom than by the rule of equity.

John 18:40. The enemies of Christ’s holy religion cry it down, and so hope to run it down; witness the outcry at Ephesus, Acts 19:34.—There is cause to suspect a deficiency of reason and justice on that side which calls in the assistance of popular tumult.—Now Barabbas was a robber; Sin is a robber, every base lust is a robber, and yet foolishly chosen rather than Christ, who would truly enrich us.

John 19:1. This pain and shame Christ submitted to for our sakes; 1. That the Scripture might be fulfilled, Isaiah 53:5, etc.; 2. That by His stripes we might be healed, 1 Peter 2:24; 1 Peter 3:0. That stripes, for His sake, might be sanctified, and made easy to His followers.

John 19:1-3. See and admire 1. The invincible patience of a sufferer; 2. The invincible love and kindness of a Saviour.—He that bore these sham honors, was recompensed with real honors, and so shall we be, if we patiently suffer shame for Him. John 19:5. Did He go forth thus bearing our reproach? Let us go forth to Him bearing His reproach, Hebrews 13:13.—Behold the Man; It is good for every one of us, with an eye of faith to behold the Man Christ Jesus in His sufferings, “Behold Him, and 1. Be suitably affected with the sight; 2. Mourn because of Him; 3. Love Him; be still looking unto Jesus.”

John 19:6. Did their hatred of Him sharpen their endeavors against Him, and shall not our love to Him quicken our endeavors for Him and His kingdom?—Pilate had not courage enough to act according to his conscience, and his cowardice betrayed him into a snare.

John 19:7. In vain did they boast of their law, when they abused it to such bad purposes.

John 19:8. Pilate fears lest he should run himself into a premunire.

John 19:10-11. When Pilate used his power, Christ silently submitted to it; but when he grew proud of it, He made him know himself.

John 19:11. All sins are not equal; but the guilt of others will not acquit us, nor will it avail in the great day to say, that others were worse than we, for we are not to be judged by comparison, but must bear our own burden.

John 19:12. It never does well, when our resolutions to do our duty are swallowed up in projects how to do it plausibly and conveniently. If Pilate’s policy had not prevailed above his justice, he would not have been long seeking to release Him, but would have done it.—A few madmen may out-shout many wise men, and then fancy themselves to speak the sense (when it is but the nonsense) of a nation, or of all mankind.—It has always been the artifice of the enemies of religion, to represent it as hurtful to kings and provinces, when it would be highly beneficial to both.

John 19:13. They that bind up their happiness in the favor of men, make themselves an easy prey to the temptations of Satan.

John 19:15. Had not Christ, interposed, and been thus rejected of men, we had been for ever rejected of God.

John 19:16. Then delivered he Him therefore unto them to be crucified; It is common for those who think to keep themselves from greater sins by venturing upon lesser sins, to run into both.

From Scott: John 18:30-31. Those who are scandalously unjust, frequently expect credit for their regard to justice; and are greatly affronted to be suspected of the least crime, while actually committing the greatest, 2 Samuel 20:8-10; 2 Samuel 20:20-22.

John 18:38. Numbers give Jesus and His people a good word, who will not join them, or venture anything in His cause.—Numbers commit injustice for fear of their dependents, and from a desire of popularity.

John 18:40. Let us beware of deliberately sparing our lusts, (those robbers of God, and murderers of the soul,) thus crucifying Christ afresh, and putting Him to open shame.

John 19:1-16. The conflict between convictions and corrupt affections, is often strong; but where faith is wanting, the world will get the victory.—Those rulers of every description, who have sat in judgment on Christ and His servants, will soon stand before His tribunal.

From A. Clarke: John 18:28-40. The most that we can say for Pilate, is, that he was disposed to justice, but was not inclined to hazard his comfort or safety in doing it. He was an easy, pliable man, who had no objection to doing a right thing, if it should cost him no trouble; but he felt no disposition to make any sacrifice, even in behalf of innocence, righteousness, and truth.——From A Plain Commentary (Oxford): John 18:36. Our Saviour does not say that He has no earthly kingdom; but that His kingdom is not of earthly origin.

John 18:37. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice; “Being of the truth” implies belonging to it; being mastered by it; taken up into it: it implies the being possessed by a principle which moulds that wherein it dwells to itself, as the weaker is held by the stronger; even the possession of the soul by the very Essence of Being and of Life, manifested in the person of the Son, and administered by the Holy Ghost.

John 18:38. “Probably Pilate thought that Jesus professed only to add one more to the list of philosophies, or systems of ideas, and turned away from it in sickness of heart.” (Archdeacon Grant.)

John 18:40. “His own, they among whom He had gone about all His life long, healing them, teaching them, feeding them, doing them all the good He could; it is they that cry, ‘Not this Man, but Barabbas!’ ” (Bishop Andrews.)

John 19:2. And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns and put it on Sis head; “A most unquestionable token this, that Christ’s kingdom was not of this world, when He was crowned only with thorns and briars, which are the curse of the earth.” (Lightfoot.)

John 19:5. Behold the Man! As if he said,—Behold the afflicted and tortured object of your malice and cruelty; “a worm, and no man.” If ye have human hearts, ye cannot behold such a dismal spectacle without commiseration!

John 19:6. Monstrous that a heathen should have had thus to remonstrate with the chief priests of a nation taught of God!

John 19:8-9. The heathen Procurator again puts the descendants of Abraham to shame. Like Gamaliel he is seized with a salutary apprehension “lest haply he be found even to fight against God.”

John 19:10. “Pilate further condemns himself in servilely yielding to a popular clamor, after so plainly declaring his own absolute, unfettered authority.” (Grotius.)

John 19:12-13. Pilate fears less to put the Son of God to death, than to incur the Roman Emperor’s displeasure.

[From Krummacher: John 18:28. They purposely push Him into the house they deemed unclean, and thus tangibly and symbolically expel Him as a publican and sinner from the commonwealth of Israel; but all this was to happen thus, in order that Christ’s character as the sinner’s Surety might become increasingly apparent, and every one perceive in Him the Man who, by virtue of a mysterious transfer, had taken upon Himself everything that was condemnatory in us.—Who is not acquainted with individuals who scrupulously abstain from worldly amusements, and carefully avoid coming into social contact with the worldly-minded, who not only vie with the world in the arts of dissimulation, uncharitable judgment of others, and hateful scandal, but even go beyond it?—The life of godliness is a harmonious organization, and not a sticking together of single acts of piety.

John 18:30. Though they were endeavoring to murder innocence and do the devil’s work, yet because they do it, it must be right and blameless.

John 18:36-37. Christ is a King; you are, therefore, not in error who wear His uniform, and have trusted your life and destiny to His hands.—He does not say that His Kingdom makes no claim eventually to the government of the whole world, or He would have denied more than was consistent with the truth; He only asserts that His government was not of this world, and clearly intimates by laying the emphasis on the word “this,” that another æon than the present would certainly see His delegates seated on the thrones, and His word and Gospel the Magna Charta of all nations. It is particularly to be observed that in); the sentence, “Now is My Kingdom not from hence,” the word “now” evidently refers to a period in which His Kingdom should occupy a position very different from what it did at that time.—Those who hear His voice are citizens of His Kingdom.—The expression, every one that is of the truth, betokens an inward preparation for conversion which no one experiences without the operation of “preventing grace.”

John 18:38. What is truth? A seeking after truth belongs to human nature, and is wont to be the last feature of it that perishes.—In Pilate there was doubtless something of the proud philosopher, something of worn-out indifference, something of the professed skeptic, something of the frivolous free-thinker and scoffer, and something of the hasty, jealous and haughty blusterer; but still there is something beside this, something better and nobler—an unperverted, inquiring mind—a longing for deliverance. (If this last be true, would not Christ, have answered?—E. R. C).

John 18:38-39. Pilate stands as a warning example of the consequence of endeavoring to satisfy God and the world: We meet with Pilate under various forms; many a one has placed himself, like him, in a situation in which he must either set Barabbas free, or give up the Saviour, because he was deficient in courage to brave every danger for Christ’s sake; many reckoning, like Pilate, on the instinctive moral feelings of the multitude, with whom they do not wish to be at variance, have cowardly asked, “Which will you choose, right or wrong?” and the unexpected reply has been thundered back, “We choose rebellion and treason.”

John 18:40. Not this man, but Barabbas; Such is the world’s favor, and so little truth is there in the saying, “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”—Barabbas does not stand before us merely as an individual; he represents, allegorically, the human race in its present condition bound in the fetters of the curse of the law till the day of judgment. Before he was presented with Jesus to the people’s choice, every prospect of escape had been cut off; and such is also our case. It is now Barabbas or Jesus: if Jesus is set at liberty Barabbas is inevitably lost; if the former is rejected, then, hail to thee, Barabbas, thou art saved! His ruin is thy redemption; from His death springs thy life,—”God made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be the righteousness of God in Him;” in Barabbas’ deliverance we see our own.

John 19:1-5. There is a closer connection between the garden of Eden and the Roman prætorium than might at first sight be supposed; debts incurred in Eden are there liquidated, and sins committed in Paradise are there atoned for. What ought to have been the fate of Adam for lusting after the forbidden fruit, and for his impious infringement of God’s prerogatives? At least, the scourge instead of sensual delight; a crown of thorns instead of the longed for diadem; and a robe of mockery instead of the imperial purple.—Does not Christ still wear, in a hundred different forms, the purple robe and crown thorns in the world? Is He not exposed to public ridicule and treated as a liar and an enthusiast because He bears witness to His superhuman dignity? Is not His name, even to this day, proscribed by thousands, like scarcely any other? Does not an ironical smile dart across the lips of many, when it is mentioned with reverence and fervor?—The words, Behold the Man, point not only to what is past, they have also a condemning reference to the present. Alas, the world has become a Gabbatha! The thorn-crowned martyred form exhibited there mutely condemns us all without distinction.—Behold the Man: In the mock robe in which He stands before you, He gains victories which He never could have won in the sumptuous robe of His divine majesty; in it He overcomes eternal justice, the irrevocable law, sin, Satan, death. It is a strange ornament that decks His head—in this wreath He possesses and uses a power of which He could not boast while adorned only with the crown of Deity; in the latter He could say to the dying thief only “Be thou accursed;” in the former He is able to say to him, “This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise;” in the former He certainly reigned, but over a hopelessly ruined race, devoted to destruction; in the diadem of thorns, He rules over a world replete with great and glorious anticipations: A feeble reed is His rod of office, but with the Sceptre of Omnipotence, which He wielded from the beginning, He did not perform the wonders which He works with this mark of abasement and weakness; true, the gates of hell opened for transgressors at a wave of the former; but when He sways the latter, the doors of the paradise they have forfeited open for them; with the former, He was Lord over mankind only as a lost race destined for the slaughter; with the latter, He now tends a flock of them called to eternal salvation. Can you mistake the Conqueror of the world in Him whom you see before you—the “stronger” who takes away the spoils and armor of the “strong man,” and makes an end of all opposing authority? In the same attire in which He there yields Himself up to the world, He continues to overcome it; the sight of the suffering Saviour is still the mighty power which silently changes lions into lambs, breaks and melts the strong heart and prepares the way for His most glorious achievements: Thus arrayed He exhibits Himself in the cell of the contrite penitent, and how is the heart, of such an one relieved, for He bare our iniquities; to the sorely tempted, and renders their victory secure; to the grievously afflicted, and they exclaim, “Through the cross to the crown;” to His children despised and rejected by the world, and they exclaim, “We desire no other array from you than that in which you once clothed our Glorious Head;” to those grieved at base ingratitude and coldness, and their sorrow turns to deep confusion at their desire for human praise; to those of His flock seduced by the allurements of the world, and restores them.

John 19:12-16. Pilate is compelled to take the part of the Holy One to the setting aside of all private considerations, or to afford his sanction to the most cruel and bloody deed the world ever witnessed; The case is similar with us; if we refuse to do Him homage, we are compelled to aid in crucifying Him.—We find in Pilate a degree of humanity and susceptibility for something better; God indeed, will judge him, but not with the lukewarm who disgust Him, and whom like the Laodiceans, He will spew out of His mouth.—Who could be able to form a correct idea of the spectacle, and yet believe that divine justice rules the world, if we were permitted to behold our Saviour only in His own person, and not at the same time as Mediator and High Priest!

[From Barnes: John 18:38. Pilate saith unto Him, What is truth? Thousands ask the question in the same way. They have a fixed contempt for the Bible; they deride the instructions of religion; they are unwilling to investigate, and to wait at the gates of wisdom; and hence, like Pilate, they remain ignorant of the great Source of truth, and die in darkness and in error.—John 19:4. The highest evidence was given that the charges were false, even when He was condemned to die.

John 18:6. When men are determined on evil, they cannot be reasoned with; thus sinners go in the way of wickedness down to death.

John 18:11. How many men in office forget that God gives them their rank, and vainly think that it is owing to their own talents or merits, that they have risen to that elevation.—The providence of God was remarkable in so ordering affairs, that a man, flexible and yielding like Pilate, should be entrusted with power in Judea. He so orders affairs that the true character of men shall be brought out, and makes use of that character to advance His own great purpose.——From Jacobus: John 18:38. What is truth? This is the kind of questioning which the world makes. It is rather a taunt thrown out against Christ and His religion—it waits for no answer.—I find in Him no fault at all; How many are willing to pronounce Him innocent, but rebel at the thought of relying on Him for salvation.—John 19:5. Behold the Man! Pilate pointed to Him as a spectacle calculated to move them.

John 18:11. Christ acknowledges that Pilate’s power is given him from on high.

[From Owen: John 18:37. This shows that the kingly domain of Jesus was in the domain of truth, that His followers were those who received the truth in the love of it, and that from all who were the subjects of truth, would be rendered to Him the most implicit obedience.

John 18:38. The conversation had taken too serious a turn to suit Pilate’s pleasure; he therefore waits for no reply.—“Pilate mocks both—the Witness to the Truth, and the haters of the Truth.” (Alford.)

John 18:40. “Thus was Jesus the goat upon which the Lord’s lot fell, to be offered for a sin-offering.” (Luthardt after Krafft.)—John 19:14. Behold your King! It is no longer, Behold the Man! to excite their sympathy and effect His release. Every emotion of tenderness, every principle of honor and justice, is now lost in the desire to evince his loyalty to Cæsar, and shield himself from an accusation like that threatened in John 18:12.

John 18:15. We have no king but Cæsar; To such a depth of degradation did these chief men of the nation descend, in their hellish desire to rid themselves of Jesus.

[Chap. 18 John 18:13; John 18:24; John 18:29; John 18:40 (Matthew 27:1; Mark 15:1; Luke 23:7). Our Lord was tried and condemned by every power having, or that might be supposed to have, authority over Him—Annas, Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate, Herod, the Populace—1. That it might be apparent that He was condemned by every ecclesiastical and world power; 2. As prophetic of His future rejection by every conceivable form of human government.

John 18:36. My kingdom is not of this world—now is My kingdom not from hence; My kingdom is not yet established; the present is, for Me and My disciples, the period of submission and patient endurance of wrong and suffering.7]

Footnotes:

[1][Of John Knox it is truly said: “He never feared the face of man.” The reason was because be feared God. Only he is truly free and independent of men, who feels bound in God and dependent on Him.—P. S.]

[2][Robinson, Tholuck, Wieseler and others, quote also as a parallel σάββατον τοῦ πάσχα in Ignatius Ep. ad Phil., c. 13; but this is not the Sabbath of the Easter-week, but the Saturday preceding Easter-Sunday, Easter-eve.—P. S.]

[3][Or in John 19:14, ἦν δὲ παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα ὅ ἐστι προσάββατον τοῦ πάσχα comp. Mark 15:42.—P. S.]

[4][In this case τοῦ πάσχα must be disconnected from παρασκευή, and connected with ὥρα in this way: ἦν δε παρασκευή, τοῦ πάσχα ὤρα ἦν ὡς ἕκτη, i. e., it was preparation-day (Friday), about the sixth hour of the paschal feast (counting from midnight). Ingenious, but very artificial and without a parallel for such reckoning. Hofmann, of Erlangen, proposed this view in an article of the Erlangen Zeitschriftf. Prot. und Kirche, 1853, p. 260 ff., and again in his Schriftbeweis. Lichtenstein adopts it in his article Jesus Christus, in Herzog’s Theol, Encycl, Vol. 6, p. 595,—P. S.]

[5][Tischendorf, Alford and Westcott and Hort put no comma between the two ἆρον, which were no doubt spoken in rapid succession with all the vehemence of furious passion.—P. S.]

[6][Overthrown in 1870, soon after the adoption of the blasphemous dogma of papal infallibility by the Vatican Council.—P. S.]

[7][It is not denied that Christ, as God, had a kingdom which existed from the beginning, nor that at His ascension He was exalted “Head over all things,” nor that His future earthly-kingdom is to be spiritual as well as political; it is simply-denied that His earthly kingdom (the kingdom here referred to) was then (or now) established. To regard the νῦν as a particle of inference, and not of time, is to suppose that our Lord whispered into the ear of a heathen, in the privacy of the Prætorium (John 19:28), the great truth concerning His kingdom which He concealed from His Apostles, not twelve hours before, at the institution of the Supper, Luke 22:29; and again concealed throughout the forty days during which He gave them instruction concerning “the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” Acts 1:3; Acts 1:6-7!—E. R. C.]