Deeper Commentary

18:1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he went with his disciples over the brook Kidron, where there was a garden into which he and his disciples entered- We have the impression that having offered Himself to the Father in speaking those words of prayer in chapter 17, the Lord now purposefully went forth "unto the Father". It was as if He had planned it all; He knew that Judas would guess that he would likely spend the night in that garden, and would be on the lookout for Him there to have Him arrested discreetly. And so He went to that very place. His life was not taken from Him, He gave it of Himself (10:18); the whole situation and timing of His death was brought about by His supreme perception of human psychology, and He thereby arranged the whole scene, getting the stage perfectly ready for the actors to walk on and act exactly as He had set them up to.

18:2 Now Judas, the one who betrayed him, also knew the place. For Jesus often met there with his disciples- As noted on :1, the Lord went there because He knew Judas would guess that He would go there to spend the night. And the Lord was right; Judas was hanging out there with a band of soldiers, guessing the Lord would go there. We note in passing that the Lord was unlike any other great teacher; He literally spent nights sleeping rough. Surely there were some who invited Him to stay at their place, and it would not have been impossible for them to have slept where they kept the last support or to have walked out to Bethany. But the Lord went to Gethsemane because He knew that Judas would guess He might go there.

18:3 Judas along with a detachment of temple guards whom he had been given, and the servants of the chief priests, and the Pharisees, arrived there with lanterns and torches and weapons- As noted on :1,2, Judas went there because he guessed that the Lord would spent the night sleeping rough there, rather than walk out to Bethany or stay with other sympathizers in Jerusalem. The Lord knew he would think like that, and went along with the plan which He Himself had set up. He was not overtaken by events and murdered; rather did He give His life just when and how He wished, setting up the entire situation which would enable Him to die as the Passover lambs were being slain, on that particular Passover, by crucifixion, at Romans hands but at the behest of the Jews, with the masses turned against Him as well as their leaders. As noted on the triumphal entry, this was why He set the crowds up to be bitterly disillusioned in Him by His inversion of all their values and expectations. Judas had prepared the men, on the off chance he would be right and the Lord would indeed go and sleep rough in Gethsemane that night. He must have been so glad his bet paid off, and the men with him would not have wasted their efforts; for a speira "detachment", was about 200 men, and some of the chief priests themselves were present (Lk. 22:52). But he was fulfilling the exact plan of the Lord. Hence RV "Judas therefore...". It was all set up by the Lord. They came with lanterns and torches, despite the full moon of Passover, because they assumed He might hide somewhere in the Kidron ravine once He saw them coming. But the Lord went out and gave Himself over to them.

18:4 Jesus knowing all the things that must come upon him, went forward and said to them: Whom do you seek?- As noted on :1-3, the Lord had set up the entire situation, and it was going exactly according to His plan. So it was knowing how His plan was going to work out that He went forward to surrender to them; we should not at all read this as any kind of fatalism and grim submission to inevitable events which were overtaking Him. Just as the ending of our lives, through illness or old age, is not to be met in this way, but rather as a conscious giving of life to the Father.

 "Whom do you seek?" is again another question which jumps out of the record to challenge all hearers and readers; as if to say  'And whom do you seek?'. He knew they knew, and that they knew that He knew... So why ask the question? It was surely to elicit in them the words and understanding that 'We seek Jesus'. For these are the words the Gospel writers place on the lips of those who wished to believe in Him (Mt. 28:5; Jn. 1:38; 20:15). The Lord's desire to witness to all men, to attempt to save even His persecutors, stands as all time a challenge to us to emulate in evangelism and by all means seeking to share the Gospel with all. Paul in his trials caught the spirit of all this, in attempting to even convert his judges.
 

18:5- see on Mt. 26:75; Jn. 18:17.

They answered him: Jesus of Nazareth- As noted on :4, the Lord had elicited from them the statement 'We seek Jesus', which is associated with belief in Him. He was by all means seeking to convert them even at that dark hour.

Jesus said to them: I am he (Judas, the one who betrayed him, was standing with them)- The Lord was a well known public figure in Jerusalem. The way Judas kissed the Lord to identify Him to them may however indicate that some of these Roman soldiers were not aware of Him. "I am he" was clearly a reference to the Yahweh Name. He had put the position in their mouths: 'We seek Jesus'. And in answer to that search, He presented Himself as the fullness of God manifest in flesh.

18:6 When he said to them: I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground- His declaration of the Yahweh Name (see on :6) was accompanied by some kind of theophany, so that they fell to the ground, just as Saul did before the encounter with the glorified Jesus. To now arrest 'the man with the face of God' was going to be difficult for them; it would involve a wilful denial of the obvious.

18:7 Again he asked them: Whom do you seek? And they said: Jesus of Nazareth- As noted previously, the Lord was seeking to convert them, eliciting from them the statement that 'We seek Jesus', which is elsewhere found on the lips of believers in Him (Mt. 28:5; Jn. 1:38; 20:15). But now they had seen His face flash with the glory of God, and had fallen to the ground before Him, He urged them not to do the apparently psychologically inevitable, but to stop in their tracks and continue seeking Him in truth. This desire to convert them, to help them even at that late stage to pull out of their nose dive to condemnation, reveals so much about the whole spirit of the Lord.

18:8 Jesus answered: I told you that I am he. If therefore you seek me, let these go their way- So often we read that the Lord told the Jews that He was God's Son, but they refused to believe. The same words are found in 10:25: "I told you and you believed not". And so it was now; the Lord had told them, shown them through the theophany that "I am", but they refused to believe. He had set up a situation whereby they were going to do to Him what they knew was wrong, and they knew He realized that. And so He asks them for a small favour- to let the disciples go free. Again, His understanding of human psychology was magnificent. He so knew and knows us, and we can therefore in all ways be assured that His judgment will be just, and will take into total account every psychological nuance and factor when judging us.

18:9 That the word might be fulfilled which he spoke: Of those whom you have given me I lost not one- This suggests that the Lord's 'keeping' of the disciples in His lifetime was physical as well as spiritual (17:12), and this explains why when speaking about their forthcoming tribulation at the hands of the world, He assures them that His physical departure will not mean that He will not continue to "keep" them; see on 16:4. For He would do so through the ministry of the Comforter, the advocate, the legal counsel for the defence.

18:10  Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear. Now the servant's name was Malchus- The Lord knew that Peter had a sword / knife hidden in his garment when in Gethsemane. But He did nothing; He didn’t use His knowledge of Peter’s weakness to criticise him. He knew that the best way was to just let it be, and then the miracle of healing Malchus must have more than convinced Peter that the Lord’s men should not use the sword. For their Master had healed, not murdered, one of the men sent to arrest Him. The Lord perhaps knew what Peter would do, for it was not hard to guess, knowing his temperament. The healing of Malchus' ear was therefore planned; for usually the Lord did not address human need but only did His "works" as a witness to His Heavenly origins; John's Gospel records this several times. The miracle was therefore yet another desperate appeal to those arresting Him to not go ahead with their plan. They did so having witnessed directly the Lord's Divine authentication. They were totally culpable, although they would have later given the excuse that they had followed a multitude to do evil; for to break ranks at that stage was indeed difficult.

18:11 Jesus said to Peter: Put the sword into its sheath. The cup which the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?- In prayer earlier, the Lord had totally accepted the cup, despite asking for it to be removed (Mt. 26:39). So Peter's resistance to the idea of the Lord drinking the cup was in fact shared by the Lord, but He consented. We see here yet another of John's cameos of the Lord's utter humanity and connection with men.  Peter had intended to kill Malchus, and only by dodging the blow aimed at his head did he survive, although the sword blow removed his ear. For all time we see that violent resistance to evil is not the Christian way.

18:12 So the detachment of temple guards and their chief captain and the magistrates' attendants of the Jews seized Jesus and bound him- The word for "detachment" could mean there were a few hundred armed men present; so Peter's attempt to murder Malchus was futile. But he may well have know Malchus, for John knew the high priest, whose personal servant Malchus was. It is not impossible that Peter aimed for him in particular to settle some old perceived score.

18:13 And led him to Annas first. For he was father in law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year- All through the record, we see the Jews' disobedience to the law. A high priest was to be for life, and there were not to be joint high priests nor agreement they could have power just for a specific period. Likewise weapons were not to be carried at the time of the feasts, but these men were armed.

18:14 It was Caiaphas that had counselled the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people- The record in John places particular blame upon Caiaphas, who is called "the prince of this [Jewish] world", who had particular responsibility for the Lord's death. This statement placed here implies again that it was Caiaphas who was behind it all.

18:15 Simon Peter followed Jesus- The Lord had specifically told Peter that he could not follow Him (13:36). If Peter had given due weight to the Lord's words and not overrated his own strength, he would not have followed, and led himself into temptation too great for him. This basic tendency to assume we shall not give in to temptation is very much part of us as humans, and in the Biblical record we have so much encouragement to face up to the fact and humble ourselves in recognizing it.

And so did another disciple. Now that disciple was known to the high priest; and he entered with Jesus into the court of the high priest- John, the disciple beloved by his Lord, brings out the apparent paradox- that he was ‘on friendly terms with the High Priest’, the great ‘satan’ of the early Christians, Caiaphas being presented as "the prince of this world" with especial responsibility for the Lord's death; and yet also ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’. When John knew full well that the Lord Jesus had taught that a man cannot be friends of both Him and of the persecuting world. Again we see the Gospel preachers / writers bringing out their own weakness as a platform upon which to appeal to other weak people to likewise believe as they had done. Quite how it was that John knew Caiaphas isn't clear; it could be that his family fishing business provided salt for the temple and therefore he knew Caipahas from business dealings. If indeed Salome was John's mother and also the sister or relative of Mary the Lord's mother, then he may well have had priestly connections in the family.

18:16 But Peter was standing outside the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the maid who kept watch at the door- If John was known to the high priest and his servants, he would have been known as a disciple of Jesus. His identification with Peter as his friend was therefore a quite obvious invitation for everyone to assume that Peter was also a disciple of the Lord. And just a few hours ago, he had attempted to murder Malchus, who would have been known to all in the yard. Any denial from Peter about his association with the Lord, let alone claiming he had never heard of Him, was doomed to failure. If only he had not followed, accepting the Lord's warning of 13:36 that he could not follow Him yet, he would have gotten into the wretched situation he did. And we can retro analyze our own failings in just the same way. 

18:17 The maid keeping watch at the door said to Peter: Are you also one of this man's disciples? He said: I am not!- Again the challenge comes out of the record to all hearers and readers: 'Are you one of this man's disciples?'. Although the Lord was not standing amongst them, all the talk was about "this man". Again we see His utter humanity. That the girl would speak like this is utterly credible and again reminds us that the Biblical record is true. These words were actually said, these things really happened.

The failure of Peter is effectively emphasized by the very structure of the Gospel accounts. John frames the interrogation of the Lord as happening alongside the interrogation of Peter. The Lord peerlessly and bravely witnesses to the Truth, and is condemned to death for it; whilst Peter flunks the issue time and again to save his own skin. Whilst the Lord unflinchingly declares His identity before the High Priest, Peter is presented as doing anything to deny his identity as a disciple. Peter's denials are presented by the records as if in slow motion, for the reader to gaze upon in detail. Peter's denial "I am not" is placed by John in purposeful juxtaposition to the Lord's brave self-identification in Gethsemane: ego eimi, "I am" (Jn. 18:5,17). And yet this 'setting up' of the leader of the early church as a failure was done by the early church writers, ultimately inspired as they were! The Gospel writers were glorying in their weakness and their Lord's supremacy. They were standing up for their unity with Him by grace, but openly and pointedly proclaiming the vast mismatch between them and Him.

18:18- see on Mt. 26:75; Lk. 22:32.

Now the servants and the officers were standing there, having made a fire of coals. For it was cold, and they were warming themselves; and Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself- The extra information about the fire being of charcoal coals was in order to highlight the similarity with the Lord's later appearance to Peter, again by a charcoal fire, where the three denials are as it were undone by three asservations of loyalty. "The servants and the officers" refers to the very same group who had just arrested the Lord in the garden. In the full Passover moon, they would surely have discerned Peter, and known that it was he who had tried to murder Malchus their colleague. These background factors made Peter's attempts to deny the Lord all the more hopeless, just as hopeless as trying to defend the Lord against a few hundred armed men by trying to kill one of them. Peter is thereby presented as not simply hotheaded, but rather simple, not thinking through the obvious outcome of situations. And yet he, the one with simple loyalty and the sins of a simple man, was the one chosen to establish the Lord's church. The record thereby appeals to the simple, that the Lord's way and even responsibility in His church is for them too.

18:19 The high priest asked Jesus about his disciples and his teaching- The Lord knew that Peter was out there in the yard and would deny Him three times. And yet when asked about His disciples, He speaks so positively about them (see on :21). The legal ground for condemnation was the Lord's claims in relation to God and the destruction of the temple. These were all issues directly connected with Him personally rather than His disciples, who were in any case not present to answer for themselves. So it could be that the questioning about them was a way of humiliation before coming to the actual allegations. He had converted a rag tag band of fishermen and simple folk like Peter, who had now fled from the garden. He had made no disciples, apparently. And the masses had turned against Him because of His purposeful disappointment of their Messianic expectations in His parody of a triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

The cross is realistically intended to be lived out in daily experience. The record of the crucifixion and trials of the Lord are framed in language which would have been relevant to the first hearers of the Gospel as they too faced persecution and suffering for their faith. John's account of the interrogation of the Lord by the Jewish leaders, accusing Him of being a false prophet, was surely written in the way it was to provide encouragement to John's converts [the "Johannine community" as theologians refer to it] to see how their court appearances before the Jews were in fact a living out of their Lord's cross. They too were to 'speak openly to the world' and 'bear witness to the truth before the world', living out the cross in the way in which they responded to the great commission.

18:20 Jesus answered him: I have spoken openly to the world. I often taught in the synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together, and have never spoken in secret- Again we see how "the world" in John refers specifically to the Jewish world, "all the Jews". From what the Lord says here, He did not teach one thing in public and another more secretly to the disciples. He did not give them special knowledge which the masses were forbidden. As taught so often in John, the Lord was the open manifestation of truth to all; He was the light, shining in darkness. There was nothing "secret" about what He stood for. He likewises asks us to be a city set on a hill, which cannot be kept secret (Mt. 5:14), being the light of the world as He was. Our witness to Him should likewise be open and direct; so much of the 'social Gospel' approach is indirect and amounts to doing the same good works done by unbelievers, without the direct and up front manifestation of the light which was characteristic of the Lord's witness.

18:21 Why do you ask me? Ask those that have heard me what I spoke to them. Behold, these know the things which I said- The Lord was rather critical of the disciples when speaking directly with them, especially concerning their lack of understanding and recall of His previous teachings. But in prayer to the Father in chapter 17 and now in talking about them to others, He is extremely positive about them; just as He is about us with all our weaknesses of understanding and behaviour. He states here that those who heard Him, His disciples (:19), could tell anyone what He had taught. He is setting up a parallel between His teaching and that of the disciples, knowing that soon they were to continue His teaching work in the world.

Peter would have reflected how his denial had been in spite of the fact that the Lord had prayed he wouldn’t do it- even though He foresaw that Peter would. Just a short time before the denials He had commented, probably in earshot of Peter and John, “ask those that have heard me, what I spake unto them”. Perhaps He nodded towards them both as He said it, to encourage them to speak up rather than slip further into the temptation of keeping quiet. He had used the same phrase earlier, just hours before: “These things have I spoken unto you” (Jn. 16:33).

18:22 And when he had said this, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying: Do you answer the high priest so?- "Struck" is the word used in the LXX of the Messianic Is. 50:6 "I gave my cheeks to blows". Perhaps, in the spirit of giving His life and not having it taken from Him, the Lord offered his cheek; although see on :23. This was totally unprovoked; perhaps the officer was over eager to ingratiate himself to the high priest. Or perhaps he was Malchus, or some other beneficiary of the Lord's healing work who wanted to demonstrate that he was not a secret Jesus sympathizer.

18:23 Jesus answered him: If I have spoken evil, testify of the evil, but if well, why do you hit me?- The Lord did not literally 'turn the other cheek', as we might have expected if He intended us to take His words of Mt. 5:39 literally. His words were aimed at helping that officer come to believe in Him; to ask himself whether the Lord had ever at any time spoken evil. He wanted the man to realize that his behaviour in hitting Him was dictated by a desire to please others; the Lord was inviting the man thereby towards freedom in Him.

18:24 Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest- The 'hearing' was very early in the morning; the appearance before Annas was a kind of pre-trial hearing, which was not required by any law. Presumably it was done in an attempt to give the impression of having done everything in a hyper correct legal sense. We see a theme in the record of the Jews being so careful to give an appearance of legal obedience whilst they were breaking the most major principles of both Divine and Roman law. 

18:25 Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said to him: Are you also one of his disciples? He denied and said: I am not!- As noted on :17, His "I am not!" compares unfavourably with the Lord's statement "I am", and shamelessly open declaration of Himself as He always had. The "also" could imply that the conversation had turned around others who were the Lord's disciples. John was known to the high priest, and presumably to his entourage, in that he had got the girl to allow Peter in to the compound. The talk would naturally have turned to how John was one of his disciples- and then quite naturally, to his friend Peter. As noted on :18, Peter displays quite some simplemindedness in not seeing that denial was pointless and deeply unconvincing.

18:26 One of the servants of the high priest, being a relative of him whose ear Peter cut off, said: Did I not see you in the garden with him?- Caiaphas and his entourage were riddled with nepotism; there were not even 10,000 people living in Jerusalem, according to Joachim Jeremias, and many who worked in a certain sphere would have been surrounded with friends and relatives as co-workers. And again, Peter ought surely to have realized that he was now inside a locked compound with a crowd of people who were friends and relatives of the very crowd whom he had just confronted in the garden. His situation was hopeless, and as noted on :18, his basic intelligence cannot be highly rated in allowing himself into that situation. But from that simple man came the baptism of thousands and the establishment of the Lord's church.

18:27 Peter denied again; and immediately the cock crew-  John’s account of Peter’s denial of the Lord is to me very beautifully crafted by him to reflect his own weakness, lest the focus be left purely upon the failure of Peter. He [alone of the evangelists] records how he knew a girl who kept the door to the High Priest’s palace, and how he was even known to the High Priest. He speaks to the girl, and she lets Peter in. Then, she recognizes Peter as one of the disciples, that he had been with Jesus, and he makes his shameful denial. But John’s point is clearly this: he, John, was known to the same girl, and to Caiaphas- but they never accused him of having been with Jesus. Because they sadly didn’t make the connection between John and Jesus. Yet when they saw Peter- they knew him as an up front disciple of Jesus. And when Peter ran out in fear and shame, John remained in the High Priest’s palace- unrecognized and unknown as a disciple of Jesus. The door girl must have realized that John and Peter were connected- because John had asked her to let Peter in. But she never made the accusation that John also had been one of Jesus’ followers. In all this, John reveals his own shame at his lack of open association with the Lord. Significantly, Acts 4:13 records how the Jews later looked at Peter and John “and they took knowledge of them [i.e. recognized them, as the girl had recognized Peter], that they [both!] had been with Jesus”. This is the very language of those who accused Peter of having ‘been with Jesus’. John learnt his lesson, and came out more publically, at Peter’s side, inspired by his equally repentant friend. It’s an altogether lovely picture, of two men who both failed, one publically and the other privately, together side by side in their witness, coming out for the Lord.

18:28 They lead Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium; but it was early, and so they did not enter into the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled and might eat the Passover- Again we see the extreme hypocrisy of men so caught up with legalistic obedience, whilst committing the worst crime of all time. "Early" is the term used technically of the fourth watch, 3-6 a.m. The appearance before Annas was clearly staged, a show trial if ever there was one. "In capital cases, sentence of condemnation could not be legally pronounced on the day of trial"; and many other such legal requirements were broken. The fear of defilement was through contact with the Gentile soldiers who were abusing the Lord. "That they... might eat the Passover" is surely proof enough that the last supper was a Passover-like meal, but not "the Passover" of the 14th Nissan. The Lord is portrayed as developing a new Israel, with a new priesthood and different central symbols; He was able to change and reinterpret the Passover with ease. 

18:29 Pilate went out to them, and said: What accusation do you bring against this man?- He went out to them as they would not go in to him lest they defile themselves. The inspired record hangs together with great credibility down to the finest details. Pilate faced the same problem as Paul's judges faced. It was simply not clear what this man's crime was.

18:30 They answered and said to him: If this man were not an evildoer, we should not have delivered him up to you- The Jews were careful not to be too specific, because they knew that they had no concrete case against the Lord. Peter lived the rest of his life under the deep impression of the events of this time, which occured whilst he was denying his Lord. He uses the same word in 1 Pet. 2:12: "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation". "Visitation" is literally 'the day of looking at', using the same word as used about how the Lord turned and looked at Peter after his third denial. Peter's idea is that just as the Lord was falsely accused of being "an evildoer", so would all those in Him. His sufferings are therefore not to be viewed from a distance, but taken into our lives; our experiences result in our being connected with Him in His time of crisis. The Greek word for "evildoer" used here only occurs four other times in the New Testament, and all of them are in 1 Peter. Consciously or unconsciously, the things of the Lord's passion were in Peter's heart, as they should be in ours.

18:31 Pilate replied to them: Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law. The Jews said to him: It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death- Pilate is repeatedly presented here as on the back foot, and nervous about dealing with the Lord. He is portrayed in history as utterly conscienceless. And so he probably was- but the person of the Lord Jesus is such that it provokes the conscience of every person, even those who appear to have no religious interest nor conscience. The fact is, every human being has a conscience, because it is intrinsic to our being human. And as noted on 15:22, our preaching of the Lord Jesus penetrates directly to that conscience. Pilate is a great example of this. The Jews had already judged the Lord as worthy of death, but their ability to execute people had been taken away from them, meaning that they had to pass over such cases to the Romans to decide, and to execute if they considered legitimate.

18:32 That the word of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spoke, signifying by what manner of death he should die- The Lord designed to die by crucifixion and yet also at the hands of the Jews. He therefore arranged things so that the plan to kill Him, and the responsibility for it, was squarely with the Jews; and yet it was to be the Gentiles who put Him to death, and through crucifixion. He therefore set Himself up to be so hated by the Jews on account of their rejection of Him that they would desire to kill Him; and to effect that, they would have to hand Him over to the Romans, who would then kill Him by crucifixion. This was all the Lord's design, part of His wilful giving of His life and not having it taken from Him (10:18), not being overtaken by events, nor in that sense murdered. He was master of the entire situation from start to finish, arranging it all so that the players all exercised their own freewill, and did what they did despite His personal efforts to lead them to repentance.

18:33 Pilate therefore went into the Praetorium and called Jesus, and said to him: Are you the King of the Jews?-  The Jews were seeking the death penalty on the basis that the Lord was setting Himself up as a king in opposition to Caesar. And yet according to their law, this was not a capital offence, in fact it was no crime at all. Their whole legal and logical case against the Lord had no consistency nor integrity at all.

The records are in fact written in such a way as to encourage us to re-live the crucifixion process as it were in slow motion. The record of the trials likewise is written in a way which encourages us to imagine it and live it out in our imaginations in slow motion. Donald Senior has pointed out how John's account of the trial scenes alternate between what is happening "inside" and "outside”:
(1) "Outside" - The Jewish leaders hand Jesus over to Pilate, Jn. 18:28-32
(2) "Inside" - Pilate interrogates Jesus, 18:33-38
(3) "Outside" - Pilate declares Jesus innocent, 18:38-40
(4) "Inside" - The Roman soldiers scourge and mock Jesus, 19:1-3
(5) "Outside" - Pliate again declares Jesus not guilty, 19:4-8
(6) "Inside" - Pilate interrogates Jesus, 19:9-12
(7) "Outside" - Pilate delivers Jesus to crucifixion, 19:13-16.

18:34 Jesus answered: Do you say this of yourself, or did others tell it to you concerning me?- The Lord was interested in the conversion of even Pilate, just as Paul was for his judges. The Lord of course knew the answer to His question- Pilate was saying this because others had told him. And yet He wishes Pilate to genuinely ask himself the question in his own heart: 'Who really is this Jesus? Is He a King?'.

18:35 Pilate answered: Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered you to me. What have you done?- Pilate avoids the question just as the Lord avoids Pilate's question. This is not a typical interaction between a judge and the accused. The Lord is taking the initiative and seeking by all means to persuade Pilate, who instead of pushing for an answer to his question about "Are you the King of the Jews?" moves on to another question. Perhaps he did not push for an answer because he knew in his own conscience that before him stood a true, Divine King. And he did not wish to dwell on the question 'Who are You?' because in his conscience he knew. Pilate distances himself from personal guilt in the matter by saying that it was the Jews who had delivered the Lord to him, and he was not a Jew and so had had no part in it. This protestation of innocence by an otherwise conscienceless man, even when he sat in the position of power, all indicates how the Lord was touching even his conscience.

18:36 Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from here- I suggested on :35 that Pilate was persuaded in his conscience that the Lord was indeed a Heavenly King, and he did not push for answer to his question about the Lord's kingship because in his heart, he knew the answer and wanted to move on. As a judge he had every right and necessity to not let the accused avoid a question. But he allows the Lord to not answer on that point. Perceiving this, the Lord now returns to this theme of His kingship, using His next opportunty to speak to return to it, even though what He says about it is not an answer to the question just addressed to Him ["What have you done?"]. The fact He claimed to have a Kingdom was a sign that He considered Himself a King. But it was not a Kingdom in the secular sense, and was not characterized by fighting for Him. But His servants just had tried to fight, to this very end! Thus He imputed righteousness to His men and was very positive about them to others.

18:37- see on Jn. 15:27.

Pilate replied to him: Are you a king then? Jesus answered: You say that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end I came into the world, that I should testify to the truth. Everyone that is of the truth hears my voice- Pilate as a Roman procurator cannot let this claim to kingship go without comment. For Caesar was to be accepted as the only king in any form. Again we see the Lord as psychological master of the whole situation. Pilate had not stated that the Lord was a King; but He perceived that this was in fact what Pilate had come to believe. See on :31,33,36.

The Lord told Pilate in the context of His upcoming death that He had come into this world to bear witness to the truth- and this was the basis upon which His Kingdom stood. And the cross was the supreme witness and exhibition of the truth. The Lord personally was the truth, the light; His person was a testimony to truth. His Kingdom, the community who accepted Him as their King, were those heard His voice, who accepted the word which was Him as a person. In 12:27, the cross is again “this cause" for which He came. His death was therefore a witness, a testimony, to the finest and ultimate Truth of God.

18:38 Pilate said to him: What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them: I find no crime in him!- The famous question "What is truth?" is another example of how phrases are used in the gospel records which as it were jump off the page and confront all hearers or readers. We all must ask this question, and visually, we can perceive that the Lord standing in front of such a questioner was Himself the answer. For He is presented in John as "the truth". The implication could be that Pilate perceived this, for his rhetorical question is immediately followed by his conviction that there was "no crime in him". The conscienceless Pilate would have had no problem in agreeing to execute a troublemaker; for he is recorded as ordering the murder or random people for no good reason at all. But here he sees no crime in the Lord and is careful not to behave like this. Clearly, his conscience had been touched.

18:39 But you have a custom, that I should release to you one prisoner at the Passover. Will you have me release to you the King of the Jews?- Matthew and Mark make it clear that Pilate was surprised they did not want the Lord released, and he remonstrated with them as to how they could wish the Lord crucified when He had done nothing wrong (Mk. 15:14). It seems that Pilate misjudged the mood of the masses; he assumed they were all pro-Jesus. He was not aware that the Lord's parody of the triumphal entry had dashed their Messianic hopes, and they were now very angry with Him. Pilate had assumed that this whole thing was just a matter of envy on the part of the priests (Mk. 15:10). Pilate's offer to release the Lord was an attempt to drive a wedge between the masses and the Jewish leadership; but he failed to realize that the leadership had persuaded the masses and they were themselves disillusioned with the Lord.

18:40 Therefore they cried out: Not this man but Barabbas! (Now Barabbas was a bandit)- Both Barabbas and the thieves are described with the same Greek word, translated "robber" (Jn. 18:40; Mk. 15:27). The Lord uses the same word when He points out that His persecutors were treating him as a "robber" (Mt. 26:55; Mk. 14:48; Lk. 22:52); He seems to be aware that what the experience He is going through is setting up Barabbas as a kind of inverse type of Himself, the true 'Son of the Father' (= 'Barabbas'). Those low, desperate men, the dregs of society, were types of us.

The crucified Christ is portrayed as King of criminals, King of the basest sort, enthroned between them, taking the place of their leader Barabbas, who ought to have been where the Lord was. Barabbas especially becomes a symbol of us all. According to Jewish tradition at the time (Pesach 8.6) “They may slaughter the Passover lamb… for one whom they [the authorities] have promised to release from prison". The Passover amnesty freed a man justly condemned to death- on account of the death of the lamb. We can imagine the relief and joy and almost unbelief of Barabbas, as he watched or reflected upon the crucifixion of Jesus- that he who rightfully should have been there on the cross, was delivered from such a death because of the cross of Christ. The image of condemned prisoners being released due to the death of Messiah is an undoubted Old Testament figure for our redemption from slavery; those locked in the dark dungeon see great light, etc.