Lesson 8 - John 19:1-16 - THE CROWN OF THORNS
INTRODUCTION: Last week, as we continued to study the last week of Jesus' earthly life in John 18:4-5, 19-23, 33-37, we covered Jesus' arrest by the Roman soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane, which was followed by his informal interrogation by Annas, the deposed high priest, His trial before the sitting high priest, Caiaphas, and the Sanhedrin, and His continued questioning by Pontius Pilot, the Roman governor, at his residence in the Praetorium. Since capital punishment (death by crucifixion) could only be ordered by the Roman governor, the Sanhedrin pressed Pilate to order Jesus executed because they had convicted Him as an "evildoer," a very vague charge. When Pilate asked Jesus if He claimed to be "king of the Jews," Jesus replied "yes," but explained that His kingdom was "not of this world," which left Pilate utterly confused. Since Pilate had no interest in what he considered to be a Jewish religious issue, he informed the Sanhedrin that "I find no guilt in Him" (18:38) and proposed that Jesus be released. The main truth we learned from this lesson was that Jesus wasn't merely a helpless victim of a corrupt system, but was in complete control of all these events as they unfolded, and He had known of these things since the Creation. In terms of personal application, we learned that because Jesus is in control, even over His own death, we can trust Him for our salvation as we endure trials and even when facing death. We also learned that no one can remain neutral about Jesus Christ. To disregard or ignore Jesus is the same as deciding against Him.
This week, in John 19:1-18, we continue the story of Jesus' trial before Pontius Pilate. We should notice that John reported much more about this proceeding than the three synoptic gospels. Since John's gospel was written much later, he appears to assume that his readers are familiar with the other gospel accounts of Jesus' trial and crucifixion. While the other accounts stress the legal aspects of Jesus' trial, John places much more emphasis on the dialogue between Pilate and Jesus.
John 19:1-3 - HAIL, KING OF THE JEWS!
1 Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him. 2 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and put a purple robe on Him; 3 and they began to come up to Him and say, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and to give Him slaps in the face.
v. 1: "Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him." - Scourge is an archaic term for flogging. Pilate's apparent motive in flogging Jesus was to appease the crowds with the hope of avoiding crucifixion. If He could generate enough sympathy for Jesus, he hoped to convince the Jews that flogging was punishment enough. If he can make Jesus look sufficiently pitiful and helpless, His claim to be king of the Jews would be seen as ludicrous.
v. 2: "And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and put a purple robe on Him;" - The soldiers engage in three stages of mockery: a crown of thorns, a purple robe, and a sarcastic salutation. Roman emperors were often depicted wearing a crown of woven laurel leaves. Jesus' crown was fashioned from date palm leaves that contained long thorns that would have severely gouged Jesus' scalp when they twisted it onto his head. Purple cloth was very expensive and typically only worn by royalty, powerful officials, or very wealthy people. Commentators suggest that Jesus' robe was borrowed for the occasion.
v. 3: "and they began to come up to Him and say, "Hail, King of the Jews! and to give Him slaps in the face." - The soldiers modify their standard greeting for the emperor (Hail Caesar!) to "Hail, king of the Jews!, but instead of saluting Him, they slap His face.
Read John 19:4-7 - CRUCIFY, CRUCIFY!
4 Pilate came out again and *said to them, "Behold, I am bringing Him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in Him." 5 Jesus then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate *said to them, "Behold, the Man!" 6 So when the chief priests and the officers saw Him, they cried out saying, "Crucify, crucify!" Pilate *said to them, "Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him." 7 The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God."
v. 4: " Pilate came out again and *said to them, 'Behold, I am bringing Him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in Him.'" - Once again Pilate stepped outside his quarters to meet with the Jewish leaders. And again, he declares that he finds no legal grounds for prosecuting Jesus.
v. 5: "Jesus then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate *said to them, "Behold, the Man!" - Notice that Pilate says, "Behold the Man," not the king. Jesus is wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe as a mockery of His supposed power. He's been flogged, bloodied, and beaten by the soldiers and would have been a pathetic sight. Pilate wanted the Jews to see Him as a frail and helpless ordinary man who was in no way a threat to their authority.
v. 6a: "So when the chief priests and the officers saw Him, they cried out saying, "Crucify, crucify!" - In the synoptics, the chief priests stir up the crowds to demand Barabbas' release and Jesus' crucifixion, but in this gospel the priests take direct action themselves; it is they who scream, "Crucify, crucify!"
v. 6b: "Pilate *said to them, "Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him." - It sounds as of Pilate is authorizing the Jewish leaders to kill Jesus, but this isn't the case. If so, they would have killed Him on the spot. Pilate would still have to authorize the crucifixion itself, even though, for the third time, he found "no guilt in Him." In terms of responsibility for Jesus' death, we can clearly see that John is pointing to guilt of the Jewish leaders rather than the Roman authorities.
v. 7: "The Jews answered him, 'We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God.'" - In this gospel, Jesus did refer to Himself as the "Son of God" (John 3:18; 5:25; 11:4), and regularly referred to God as "His Father" (John 4:21-23; 5:17-45, etc.) But the Jewish opposition was driven by the fact that Jesus challenged their authority at every step, so that these leaders were far more concerned about their personal power than religious scruples.
Read John 19:8-11 - YOU WOULD HAVE NO AUTHORITY OVER ME
8 Therefore when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid; 9 and he entered into the Praetorium again and *said to Jesus, "Where are You from?" But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate *said to Him, "You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?" 11 Jesus answered, "You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin."
v. 8: "Therefore when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid;" - Pilate was already afraid of the potential political backlash caused by his conflict with the Jews. They had previously complained to Rome about him. And though he had no firsthand experience with Jesus, He had heard that He could perform miracles and wonders, and that had the effect of adding to his fears.
v. 9: "and he entered into the Praetorium again and *said to Jesus, 'Where are You from?' But Jesus gave him no answer." - Trying to make sense of these confusing events, Pilate asks one more question: "Where are You from?" But Jesus refuses to answer because He knew that Pilate had no real interest in learning the truth about Him. He only wanted to do what was personally and politically expedient-to get himself out of this mess.
v. 10: "So Pilate *said to Him, 'You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?'" - Here, Pilate tries to play 'hardball' with Jesus. By Roman law, he has the power of life and death over Jesus. But Jesus already knows that He's on an unstoppable path to the cross because of the sacrifice He must make of behalf of humanity.
v. 11: "Jesus answered, 'You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.'" - Jesus corrects Pilate. Yes, he had life and death authority over Him, but that power "from above" was a power far greater than Pilate's Roman emperor. Yet, at the same time, this doesn't relieve Pilate of responsibility for his actions. God had not made it impossible for Pilate to do the right thing and refuse to hand Jesus over for crucifixion. Caiaphas had committed the greater sin-plotting Jesus Death (18:14), yet Pilate is still accountable for his sin.
Read John 19:12-16 - WE HAVE NO KING BUT CAESAR
12 As a result of this Pilate made efforts to release Him, but the Jews cried out saying, "If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar." 13 Therefore when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. And he *said to the Jews, "Behold, your King!" 15 So they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!" Pilate *said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." 16 So he then handed Him over to them to be crucified.
v. 12: "As a result of this Pilate made efforts to release Him, but the Jews cried out saying, "If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar." - In this verse, notice that it's the "Jews" who protest Jesus' release. We can't be certain whether it refers only to the Jewish leaders or also includes the crowd. It also introduces a more ominous element to the proceedings: They all know that Pilate will be hard-pressed to keep his job if the Jews complain to Caesar that he failed condemn a man guilty of treason against Rome. The chief priests have been slow to exploit Pilate's weak point, but now they have finally found it.
v. 13: "Therefore when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha." - Pilate finally concedes defeat by moving to the "judgment seat." The place, known as the "Pavement" (Heb. Gabbatha) was a raised platform that was designed to emphasize the governor's authority and the magnitude of the decision being rendered.
v. 14: "Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. And he *said to the Jews, "Behold, your King!" - This verse has generated much scholarly debate over which "day" it was: Since the phrase "day of preparation" normally described the day before the Sabbath, the day would be Friday. Scholarly efforts to resolve this difference with the synoptics are beyond the scope of our lesson. The "sixth hour" would be noon, while Mark's gospel says the third hour. Scholars suggest that John was using a Roman time, while Mark followed a Jewish method.
v. 15: "So they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!" Pilate *said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." - Again the Jewish leaders (and perhaps the crowd) demand Jesus' crucifixion; and once again, Pilate mocks them by referring to Jesus as "their king." In response, The Jews also hypocritically proclaimed Caesar as their true king. This went way beyond rejecting Jesus: they were repudiating Israel's Messianic hope, including a future Messianic kingdom-blasphemy against Judaism itself. This helps explain why God temporarily turned from Israel to continue His dealing with humankind through the church.
v. 16: "So he then handed Him over to them to be crucified." - Pilate's action constituted his sentence against Jesus: John meant to show that Pilate handed Jesus over to the Roman soldiers in order to satisfy the demands of the Jewish leaders the crowd with them.
POSTSCRIPT: We aren't going to cover the remainder of this chapter, which reports Jesus' journey to Golgotha, the place of the skull, where he was nailed to the cross. I imagine most of us are already very familiar with the details of Jesus' death as reported in this section. Crucifixion, probably the most cruel and unusual form of punishment ever devised by man, was specifically designed to show what happened to people who rebelled against the authority of Roman rule. Verses 38-42 of this chapter report that Pilate gave Jesus' dead body to Joseph of Arimathea, who with Nicodemus, prepared the body for burial and placed it in a new tomb in a garden.
APPLICATION-Choosing Your Friends
1. Friendship with Caesar-I.e., the world-forces you to compromise your integrity; friendship with Christ enables you to retain your integrity and forgive your enemies. One of Pilate's glaring character flaws was that he compromised his integrity in a futile attempt to keep both Caesar and the Jews as his friends. As we learned in the lesson, Pilate made some serious blunders early in his rule over Judea that weakened his leadership and caused the Jews to complain to Rome about him. So, to save his career and his neck, he compromised his integrity. Instead of doing the right thing (letting Jesus go), he offered the Jews the choice of releasing the notoriously violent prisoner Barabbas or Jesus. Pilate thought that they wouldn't want a dangerous character like Barabbas out on the streets. Surely they'd pick Jesus. But Pilate was wrong. The Jews chose Barabbas.
2. Friendship with Caesar means you have contempt for the people who oppose your agenda; friendship with Christ means you have compassion for people who oppose you. Pilate viewed the Jews as thwarting his career goals. They had already caused him some major headaches because of their religion and their complaints to Caesar about his heavy-handed leadership. It's easy to see why Pilate felt nothing but contempt for the Jews! If you've ever been around people who make you feel like they're "holier-than-thou" because of their religion, it doesn't exactly warm your heart toward them! The tragedy is that God intended for the Jews to be a light to the Gentiles. Instead, all they did was make Pilate feel he was beneath them, so that in turn he felt dislike and disgust for them.
3. Friendship with Caesar puts you in bondage to fear and anxiety; friendship with Christ frees you from fear and gives peace with God. Pilate was living in fear of the threat that the Jews would report something else to Rome, so he had to be careful not to offend or anger them, even though he despised them. This is why he didn't just release Jesus, even though he knew that He was innocent. He was afraid of the Jews. Pilate had just had Jesus flogged, even though he knew that He was innocent of any crime. That creates a guilty conscience, which always results in fear. What if Caesar finds out what he had done? Or, what if Jesus really was a "god" who had come to earth?
4. Friendship with Caesar gets you a untrustworthy friend who offers no hope for the future; friendship with Christ gains a faithful friend for time and eternity. Pilate decided to be the friend of Caesar and the Jews rather than the friend of this mocked, despised Galilean Jew. He made a bad choice! In A.D. 36, a Samaritan man claimed that he knew where Moses hid the golden objects from the tabernacle on Mt. Gerazim. Moses had never crossed the Jordan, so no one should have believed him. But he gained a following of armed people and tried to find the treasure. Pilate viewed it as a rebellion and sent troops to slaughter the Samaritans. The survivors complained to Pilate's superior, who deposed him and ordered him to Rome to stand trial before Caesar. Fortunately for Pilate, Caesar died before he got there. The historical record beyond that is unclear, but probably he was banished to Gaul where he eventually committed suicide.
