Jesus and the Clash of Cultures (John 18)
“Post-modernism” — that which comes after the modern. The Church is in the age of post-modern thinking. Post-modern thinking cuts across cultural and social barriers, from the brightest college students to drug users on the mean streets of wherever.[1] Post-modernism or PoMo infects every discipline of current human endeavor, including how we read and how we think. What is PoMo and why should journalists of faith care?[2][3][4][5]
Take literature: Literature asks the question, “How do we read a book, a play, any piece of writing?” The pre-post-modern approach, the traditional approach to answering this question would be,
“What was the intent of the author?
What did Shakespeare have in mind when he wrote Macbeth?
What did Paul have in mind when he wrote Romans?”
But, Post-modernism denies meaning in the author’s intention.[6]
PoMo states that every writer, as he writes, is, by necessity, bound by the world-view of his/her culture. Only if we understand the conventions in the particular culture in which a particular author wrote, then we can understand the particular text of that author.
To understand Shakespeare you must understand all the biases, prejudices, injustices, etc. in Shakespeare’s 16th century Elizabethan society.
To understand the Apostle Paul correctly, one must understand 1st century primitive Palestinian customs and habits and traditions.
The author’s intent is irrelevant because we can never know it, and probably the author doesn’t even know it.[7]
Post-modernism (“deconstructionism” or “Literary Theory”) tells us that the text can give no meaning to the reader — it is the reader that gives meaning to the text. For example, if you read Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing with Post-modernist eyes, you would ask, “What was the society in which Shakespeare lived when he wrote this play?” and “What were the conventions which controlled the relationships between men and women?” You might end up with a radical Feminist reading or a Marxist reading or a Christian reading depending upon which questions you choose to ask about Shakespeare’s society. Shakespeare’s intent would be considered completely irrelevant.
Or if I have a room of 15 students, all reading John’s Gospel, each student could come up with a completely different interpretation of the text each time he or she reads it, and every interpretation is just as authentic, just as correct as every other interpretation.
In POMO, there is no right or wrong interpretation of an article, book or play.
Take philosophy: Post-modern philosophy[8] asks the question, “How do we know anything about a particular something?” For instance, “How can we know anything about this pen?”
A pre-modern person (someone before the Enlightenment–1600) looking at this pen would have said, “Your pen has an objective existence guaranteed by an external God (or some transcendent reality); it really does exist.”[9]
A modern person (from the Enlightenment to the mid-20th century), would have said, “Your pen has an objective existence which is discovered by my personal observation and reason (i.e, science).”
A post-modern person, however, says “Your pen may or may not exist as a pen.”
The great difference is that the post-modernist believes that things have no objective existence. Things are simply a construction of the society or group in which one lives or is a member. This means that there is no truth which applies to everybody. This is the very heart of post-modernism — there is no objective standard, objective reality or objective truth.[10] PoMo’s view of rationality[11] is that all reasoning is based on certain pre-suppositions. Every thinker has conscious or unconscious biases, and a person’s thought processes reflect those biases. There are no timeless principles (meta-narratives) of rationality or truth. There is only a personal intuitive response shaped by the moment in time and my place in space. So, to the PoMo what is truth in Asheville right now might not be truth in Omaha right now.[12]It is in light of this current post-modern cultural atmosphere, that our passage today is important to consider. John’s portrayal of the 1st interview between the European Pontius Pilate and the Jewish Jesus was designed to bring out the world-view conflicts between the heathens, the religious folk, and Jesus. We will see that no one in our inspired story is interested in the truth — well, one man is interested in the truth.[13]Our holy narrative in John 18:28-40 begins with the Jewish leaders (“Sanhedrin”[14]) walking Jesus to the Roman governor’s residence.[15] Pilate, as governor, had rooms in this royal fortress since it was close to the garrison of Roman soldiers (Mark 15:16). At the gate of the governor’s residence,[16] Jesus was handed over to Pilate who had come out to meet the Jewish delegation which had been stirred-up by Caiaphas, the current high priest (John 18:28).
Since Caiaphas was the high priest, he was a Sadducee.[17] Caiaphas had married well, his father-in-law was the powerful Annas, the high priest immediately before him (John 18:3), and Caiaphas was shrewd, prideful (Matt. 27:18), and savvy.[18] During the inter-testamental period, the Sadducees were very friendly with the surrounding Greek culture (2 Macc. 4:14-16), and they became pronounced Hellenizers those who favored Greco-Roman culture and world-views over the Israelite separatist Biblical world-view. Consequently, by the time of John the Baptist in 30 AD, the Sadducees had earned John’s epithet of “snakes” (Matt. 3:7).[19]
Now, Caiaphas was a churchman. He was a leader of God’s people at the time of Jesus. Indeed, the Sadducees were outwardly Bible-believing followers of Jehovah. They took the Scriptures seriously enough to quote Moses to Jesus in the form of a mock question in Matt. 22:24 (Deut. 25:5), and Jesus acknowledges as much when He asks them,
Have you not read what was spoken to you by God (Matt. 22:31)?
So, the Sadducees upheld the writings[20] of the OT Church.
But, they were churchmen without the divine power of insight. Paul describes people like them to Timothy as “people who have the form of godliness but deny its power” (1 Tim. 3:5). They were men who knew God’s ordinances and written laws, but they didn’t know God’s Spirit. They had circumcised bodies, but uncircumcised hearts. Jesus calls them “blind guides,” “a brood of vipers,” “hypocrites,” “blind fools,” “whitewashed tombs” in Matthew 23. They were men who understood the system of revealed doctrine but not the essence of that doctrine.[21]
Pilate comes out of his palace compound to meet the Sadducee Caiaphas’ and his party at the gate “early” (about 7 or 8 in the morning) and that’s because the Jews wouldn’t come in to the heathen palace lest they be contaminated by entering the dwelling place of heathens (cf, Lord’s comment in Luke 11:39; Acts 10:28). The hypocrisy of God’s people is breathtaking at times in its arrogance. Here we have God’s chosen people not minding killing the “Truth” (John 14:6), but they didn’t want to be “defiled” during their holy time of the year (cf, Matt. 23:23).[22] In short, God’s chosen people (Sadducees) were concerned about eating the Passover lamb, but they were unconcerned about killing the Passover Lamb.[23]
Because the Jews were a rebellious people, they had been given some liberty and self-government by the Romans. Herod was the Jewish civil ruler (Luke 23:6-7) and Caiaphas was the Jewish religious ruler. Part of the Jewish self-government was a sophisticated judicial system, but without the final authority of capital punishment — the death penalty (John 19:10). That authority was reserved by the Romans for themselves; in Palestine that Roman authority was the Italian, Pontius Pilate.[24]
The narrative goes something like this:
Pilate comes out of his pro-curator’s palace and asks the Sanhedrin:
What charges are you bringing against this man? (vs. 29)
The Jews snap back:
If he weren’t a criminal,[25] we wouldn’t be here. (vs. 30)
Pilate:
Why bring him here? Judge (krivnate) him according to your own laws. (vs. 31)
The Jews reply testily:
Because we can’t kill (apokteinvai) him (cf, Mark. 14:64). (vs. 31)
Now, Pilate gets the picture. Scriptures teach that Caiaphas had the trial wired from the beginning.[26] He wasn’t interested in Biblical justice, in the truth![27] because “justice” as far as the post-modern thinking Sadducees were concerned was the death penalty for the innocent Jesus. That was the “just” act that benefited their tribe.
Now Jesus is brought before Pilate, and Pilate asks Jesus,
So YOU’RE the king of the Jews? (vs. 33)
with an attitude that communicates: “You are awfully scruffy and bedraggled to be king of anybody, even of the Jews.”
Jesus:
Is that your own question, or has somebody put you up to that question. (vs. 34)
Implication: “Is that question coming from you, Pilate, or are you just a mouthpiece for a special interest group (i.e., the Sanhedrin)?
Pilate then gives Jesus his tragic answer:
Do you think I am a Jew? It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done [to make them so mad]? (vs. 35)
Pilate is saying to Jesus, “The Jews and I don’t conspire together. I don’t care if you are the king of the Jews. This is a Jewish question. It doesn’t make any difference to me. Be the king of the Jews for all that I care. The truth of that particular accusation doesn’t concern me.”
Then Jesus responds to Pilate’s question of “What have you done?” with His own evasive, non-answer:
My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another world. (vs. 36)
Pilate presses:
So, you are a king, then. (vs. 37)
Jesus gives this strange reply:
Right you are! In fact, for this very reason I was born and for this very reason I came into the world — to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. (vs. 37)
Paul calls this the “good confession” of truth of Jesus when he writes his young disciple, Timothy, in 1 Tim. 6:13. That is, all who love the “truth” and desire to know more of the “truth” and to follow the “truth” are followers of Jesus (John 3:21). Note that Jesus does not say that His kingdom is not in this world, but rather His kingdom is not “of this world.” He says that because His kingdom is, indeed, in this world. That is, “The origin and nature of my present kingdom is of a different character than your Roman kingdom, Pilate, but it stands along side your Roman kingdom.”
The European Pilate clearly understands now, and he sees no political threat in Jesus. He hasn’t noticed Jesus stirring up political rebellion against the Romans. Jesus is not claiming to be the king of the Roman Empire. In fact, it is a Jewish matter and Pilate wants it all to go away. Still, Pilate is intrigued: How can a king reign over a non-kingdom? Where is this king’s army and where are his administrators, his pro-curators? Here is Jesus talking about another-world kingdom where “truth” (and not power, peace, security, prosperity, etc.) but “truth” is the guiding principle. Pilate asks Jesus a political question about His “kingdom,” and Jesus responds by talking about philosophy, about “truth.” It’s a very strange reply. Jesus doesn’t even answer Pilate’s rather simple and straightforward question.
As a successful political operative, Pilate, seeing no political threat in Jesus, now becomes dismissive of this kingdom-of-truth, and he famously replies, “What is truth” (Ti estin alatheia)(vs. 38). I would paraphrase Pilate’s post-modern response:
Truth. Smooth! What is truth? I have heard all my life of various truths, from Plato to Aristotle to the Stoics, each asserting that it was the truth, and each disagreeing with the other. So I say, Who is to decide what is truth and what is not truth? (vs. 3 
We know Pilate’s attitude is skeptical even cynical and dismissive, and not a genuine searching inquiry because Jesus doesn’t respond with, ”Pilate, I am the truth,” like He did with the genuine Thomas question earlier (John 14:6). The Word of God tells us that whoever genuinely seeks the truth will find the truth. Jesus hides from no genuine seeker because no one seeks unless God first beckons that person (Prov. 2:4-5; Ps. 138:6; Matt 7:7; Acts 8:26-35, Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch; but see John 7:34). But to Pilate, Jesus is silent at this point, and that is because Pilate wasn’t really interested in finding the “truth.”
In short, Pilate’s statement — “What is truth” (vs. 3 — is not a question. It is an assertion. The Roman pro-curator was educated in the European part of the Roman Empire. Therefore, he was educated in the current philosophies of his day. Even if he were not philosophically self-conscious, but I believe he was, he could not avoid the prevailing philosophic world-view of the Roman Empire of his day, just as you and I can’t avoid our culture today. And what was that general world-view of 1st century Rome?
1) It was cosmopolitan.[28]
2) It was individualistic (because it was so impersonal).[29]
3) It was syncretistic.[30]
In short, Pilate lived in a secular and pluralistic intellectual atmosphere very similar to today’s American society. Is it any wonder that with this intellectual background, in the face of Jesus’ claim to be a “king born to testify to the truth” yet without a visible kingdom or army or power, and with Jesus being charged with a capital crime by His own Jewish people, that Pilate, the political opportunist (John 19:12, 16) could shrug and say,
“What a circus? What’s truth? You guys decide what your own truth is. Leave me out of it”
Pilate’s response was no different than what we hear today from our post-modern cultural and educational “gatekeepers” (I Chron. 9:19). Truth depends on who you are and where you are from. Truth is culturally relative. What is true for one group is not true for another group. By whose standards are we to judge? If you are a European (Roman), truth is one thing. If you are religious or ethnic (Sadducee), truth might be something different. If you are “circumcised of the heart” (Jesus and His followers), truth will be something different still. Who’s to know? Who is to decide? What difference does it make, as long as we have peace of mind, personal prosperity and social stability?[31]
Pilate now turns from Jesus and goes out to Caiaphas waiting at the palace gate, and says to Ciaphas:
I find no basis for a charge against this fellow. He is not my problem. I don’t find fault (aiton) with this man. (vs. 38; Luke 23:4)
How could Pilate find fault? Pilate had no moral or ethical standards with which to find fault. His only concern was political survival, and Jesus wasn’t threatening that. There was no moral transcendent universal of good or virtue or righteousness from which to judge or find fault with anyone. If Pilate wasn’t personally harmed, there was no foul. Scriptures show that Pilate moved from appeasing Jesus (John 19:12) to appeasing the people (Mark 15:15; Luke 23:24) to neutrality (Luke 23:22) — all within a couple of hours during this trial period.[32]
So what can we conclude from our passage?
ConclusionWhen Jesus said, “my kingdom is not of this world” what he was saying, of course, is that His kingdom is not fundamentally a tangible reign, but an intangible reign. And in His non-physical kingdom it doesn’t make any difference if one is physically a Caiaphas or a Pilate, an Oriental or a European. Jesus is true for both men. In 1 Cor. 1:18-31, Paul tells us both Jews and Europeans (“Greeks”) will find the true world-view in “Christ the power of God and [Christ] the wisdom of God.”[33])[34] [35][36].[37][38]
In our post-modern age when everybody is a Pilate (“What’s truth.”), the power of the gospel to give eternal life is that it claims to be the “true truth” (Rom. 1:16-17) as Francis Schaeffer would say or “total truth” as Nancy Pearcey says. And Paul said if Christianity is not the only truth then we who base our lives on such nonsense are to be most pitied (1 Cor. 15:12ff). But thanks be to God for we have “reliable witnesses” (Is. 8:2), eyewitness testimony (Luke 1:1-3; John 21:24; Acts 1:1-3; 2 Peter 1:16; etc.) that there is a living God, and He is sovereign over His world. And today’s journalists of faith continue that divine calling of being scribes for Jesus to the effect that when society cynically shrugs and asserts in a world seemingly random and chaotic, “What’s truth?” believing journalists can continue to respond with a recognition of the abiding concerns of the kingdom of God which exists along side of the kingdom of man.[39]
[1][1] What are the characteristics of my students at Central Washington University? They lack idealism; They are reluctant to commit themselves to anything; They are irreverent toward everything sacred; They belittle all authority. They are apathetic, skeptical and bored.
[2] Post-modernism art brings Mickey Mouse and Picasso next to each other. There is no high culture or low culture. Anything or everything can be art. The American artist Andy Warhol would sell Campbell’s Soup cans or Brillo boxes as great works of art, and we laugh, but when we look deeper, we see that Post-modernism is saying, “There are no standards. Nothing is better than anything else.” PM says art isn’t intrinsic to certain things, it is merely a way of looking at anything. In the supermarket, a Brillo box isn’t art, but in the gallery it is art. It is in the eye of the beholder. Or, art is in the ogle, not the girl.Postmodern architects use every style of architecture throughout the history of building design.
[3] Literature asks the question, “How do we read a book, a play, any piece of writing?” The traditional approach to answering this question would be, “What was the intent of the author? What did Shakespeare have in mind when he wrote Macbeth? What did Paul have in mind when he wrote Romans?” But, Post-modernism denies meaning in the author’s intention. This position is known as New Criticism or Structuralism.
[4] PM states that every writer, as they write, is, by necessity, bound by the world-view of his/her culture. If we only understand the conventions in the particular culture in which the author wrote, then we can understand the text. To understand Shakespeare you must understand all the biases, prejudices, injustices, etc. in Shakespeare’s 16th century Elizabethan society. To understand the Apostle Paul correctly, one must understand 1st century Palestinian customs and habits and traditions. The author’s intent is irrelevant because we can never know it. “Reader Response Theory”
[5] Post-modernism (or as my English Dept. colleagues call it “deconstructionism” or “Literary Theory”) tells us that the text can give no meaning to the reader — it is the reader that gives meaning to the text. For example, Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing. If you read this play with Post-modernist eyes, you ask, “What was the society in which Shakespeare lived when he wrote this play?” “What were the conventions which controlled the relationships between men and women?” You might end up with a radical Feminist reading or a Marxist reading depending upon which questions you choose to ask about Shakespeare’s society. Shakespeare’s intent would be considered completely irrelevant. Because literary criticism is often one of the most influential disciplines at any contemporary university, especially affecting the History Department. If I have a room of 100 students, all reading Plato or Hamlet or John’s Gospel , each student could come up with a completely different reading of the text each time he or she reads it, and every reading is just as authentic, just as correct as every other reading. There is no right or wrong interpretation of an article, book or play.
[6] This position is known as “New Criticism” or “Structuralism.”
[7] “Reader Response Theory”
[8] Particularly the philosophy of knowledge, or “Epistemology”
[9] Thus in the pre-modern view, material things have an objective existence, but they are upheld by something above the material.
[10] To sum up: Post-modernism is a lack of idealism, a reluctance to commit to anything and an irreverence toward all authority and everything sacred.
[11] Something like van Tillian Christian apologetics.
[12] Moral Relativism: The 1st consequence of PoMo is moral relativism. For the Post-modernist, there can be no universal (transcendent) or binding commandments. Nobody has the right to tell anybody else what to do. Democracy is now voting on what our morality should be, not who our representatives should be. So we have referendums every year on abortion, drug use, euthanasia, gun-control, gambling, homosexuality, etc. It is the fulfillment of British novelist William Golding’s words, “If God is dead; if man is the highest; good and evil are decided by majority vote.” There is no moral objective standard of virtue by which we can judge conduct. This has resulted in a loss of respect and rational discussion in the public square. In America, we have culture wars between different groups in the community who no longer understand each other and can no longer communicate with each other, and that is because we have lost a shared understanding of what is right and wrong we can no longer talk to each other.Irrationalism: Another consequence of PoMo is that nothing can be known by reason. There is no objective truth. Over 80% of Generation X (and 67% of America’s general population) says there is no absolute truth; there is only personal truth. That is, “You have your truth, and I have my truth, and what’s true for you may not be true for me.“ Living in a pluralistic society reinforces this. It’s very easy to think that Christianity is the truth if everybody around me is a Christian, but if I live on a street where one of my neighbors is a Hindu and another is a Muslim and a 3rd is an academic, it is much harder to think that Christianity is the truth.The problem is, if we Christians say there is only personal, local truth, we are saying there is no ultimate, universal truth. I teach approximately 120 college underclassmen every day of the school year and most of them believe there is no truth. In fact, they believe that truth is not worth looking for; it does not even enter their minds that there might be ultimate meaning or purpose in the world. As an example, the music they listen to, “alternative rock,” is deeply pessimistic. It wasn’t so long ago in America, that “alternative rock” was listened to only by college students, but today alternative rock is popular for high school students as well Contemporary rock musicians write some of the most interesting music today, yet, their lyrics are often tragic and hopeless.Practical idolatry: Another consequence of PoMo is practical idolatry. People have to live for some thing, and that thing will completely control their lives no matter how irrational it may be. In fact, we don’t even ask the question, “Is it reasonable?” With no passion to fill us, and no commandments to guide us, we try to find meaning and direction in any thing — sex, money, education, friends, pleasure, ambition, family, whatever. Human society is an idolatrous society; people are consumed by the pursuit of things and pleasure. If there is nothing in heaven to worship, we will worship something on earth.We humans are fundamentally religious (Eccles. 3:11), and so we become open to any religion that will help us experience our spiritual nature. We pursue every kind of neo-paganism, every sort of New Age religion, but we don’t ask the intellectual question, “Is it true?” rather we ask the emotional question, “Does it make me feel spiritual or contented?As the man-centered gospel ditty states, “You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart” “I serve a risen Savior” or the imploring of the praise song, “In my heart, Lord, be glorified.”
[13] Do you realize that American culture in l998 is more like the culture of Jesus than any culture since the Reformation 500 years ago. I could even argue that our culture is more like the culture of Jesus than at any time since Augustine’s culture 1500 years ago. That is because there is no longer a Judeo-Christian world-view consensus, but rather a cauldron of conflicting religious claims in America right now splitting races, sexes, generations, and world-views. For instance,*Did you know that there are more American Moslems than there are American Episcopalians, or United Church of Christ members, or Assemblies of God members, or Presbyterian Church, USA members?*New Age adherents with their mother Goddess deity and feminist Gnostic ideology is sweeping main-line denominations and their liberal seminaries and colleges.*Multi-culturalism with its cultural and ethical relativism dominates the colleges and universities in this land, even most so-called “Christian” colleges, including those in our own state.*Government control is growing to such an extent that when our morals collapse and we have lost our virtue as a society, only civil laws will determine right from wrong and punish the wrong-doers. That’s why we have 70% of the world’s attorneys in the US. Legal control has become society’s hope for survival.Results of a recent extensive survey done among evangelical seminarians in this country show that the Bible-believing pastors-to-be do not believe that our society and culture is corrupt and they are not concerned that they might become morally and spiritually contaminated by the world. To these future leaders of the Bible-believing church, the surrounding culture is innocent and spiritually neutral (The Coming Generation,” God in the Wasteland, David F. Wells).In sum, our culture is increasingly reflecting the apostolic culture with Rome and Jerusalem glowering at each other.
[14] the Jewish supreme civil legislative body, Mark 15:1
[15] In the NE corner of the temple area Called Antonia.
[16] (praitwrion = Praetorian)
[17] He had been the high priest for about 15 years now. He was appointed to this very high post by the heathen Roman governor of Syria, the same man Pilate reported to.
[18] As a result, he would last 18 years as the Jewish high priest. For example, immediately after Jesus had raised Lazarus, Caiaphas began to plot the death of Jesus (John 11:47-53). He uttered the memorable line, “It is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, than that the whole nation should perish” (John 11:50; 18:14). At Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, when Jewish witnesses failed to obey Caiaphas’ instructions to incriminate Jesus, Caiaphas turned to Jesus and commanded Him to declare whether or not He was “the Messiah, the Son of God.” And when Jesus said He was the Messiah, Caiaphas hypocritically professed shock, all along knowing that that was exactly why he put Jesus on trial — Jesus had repeatedly claimed to be “the Messiah” (Matt. 26:59-68). The unscrupulous Caiaphas then dramatically tore his clothes in mock anguish as this Jewish blasphemy. As a Sadducee, Caiaphas contended with the Pharisees for control over the Jewish religious culture. The Sadducees: 1) Limited their beliefs to the sacred text of the OT. The OT alone, they claimed was binding, but they maintained the arrogant and subjective view that private interpretation of the OT was their right, even if that interpretation was not Biblically sound (Matt. 22:29–”you do not know the Scriptures”). They were greatly influenced by Greek Aristotelian philosophy, and they refused to accept any doctrine which they could not prove by pure reason. They were a small group of wealthy, educated, socially prominent Jews who took their name and religious power from the name of the David’s high priest, Zadok (2 Sam. 15:24-29)(which in the Greek becomes Sadouk). 2) Argued for the freedom of the will, teaching that all our actions are in our own power, so that we are the causes of what is good, and we receive what is evil from our own folly. Consequently, they affirmed that God is not concerned in our doing good and not doing what is evil. They also denied the resurrection and hell, asserting that the soul dies with the body (Matt. 22:23-33; Acts 23:8), and they denied the existence of “angels and spirits” (Acts 23:8).
[19] Caiaphas was an ardent persecutor of the apostolic church (Acts 5:17-21, 27; 9:1), particularly Peter and John (Acts 4:6) and Stephen (Acts 7:1ff).There is an ancient legend that Caiaphas became a Christian later in life. There is an ancient legend that Caiaphas became a Christian later in life.
[20] “Scriptures” = grafas
[21] They were uncomfortably like those of us who believe that the most complete understanding of the revealed Scriptures is expressed in the Augustinian/Calvinist tradition. So, when you read of Caiaphas, or the Sadducees, or the Sanhedrin, or “the teachers of the law” substitute PCA and see if it fits.
[22] Augustine: “O impious blindness! They would be defiled by a dwelling which was another’s, and not be defiled by a crime which was their own. They feared to be defiled by the praetorium of an alien judge, and feared not to be defiled by the blood of an innocent brother Jew.”
[23] Pilate was the 5th governor or pro-curator of south Palestine. He ruled from 26 to 36. As such, he reported to the governor of Syria who reported directly to the Emperor in Rome, although Pilate, himself, was an imperial appointee. He had absolute responsibility for military and administrative matters in his area of jurisdiction. He probably was Italian and we know he was married (Matt. 27:19). And, we know he was of at least middle class status because one had to buy high administrative positions in the government–that sounds familiar!
[24] What this resulted in, of course, was that the murder of Jesus is laid at the doorstep of pagan Western civilization and not a provincial special interest group. Pilate had a history of offending the Jewish people, particularly the proud Jewish leaders. Luke 13:1, as well as Josephus the Jewish historian and Philo the Jewish philosopher, both contemporaries of Pilate, give us indications of his heavy-handedness, and somewhat impolitic handling of Jewish affairs. Nevertheless, however bad Pilate might have been, he did last 10 years as pro-curator and so at least the Roman governor of Syria was reasonable satisfied with his work. We know Pilate was politically ambitious, and therefore he was a political survivor and chameleon, or he would not have agreed to go to the land of the Jews, far from the glory of Rome. Nevertheless, Pilate apparently couldn’t quell his natural cruelty and anti-Semitism, for he was ruthless in smashing Jewish uprisings, and finally, after 10 years of severity, he was relieved of his position and sent to Rome for trial for political mismanagement. The Roman emperor Tiberius, who was to try Pilate, died before the trial began and so Pilate’s life was spared. The Roman historian Eusebius tells us that Pilate committed suicide later in Gaul. Legends abound about Pilate, and one of the most intriguing is that Pilate’s wife became a Christian (cf, Matt. 27:19) and so the Coptic Christian Church in Egypt and Ethiopia celebrates June 25th as St. Procula day.
[25] katopoios = “evil doer”
[26] When the Romans didn’t cooperate, Caiaphas will take the law into his own hands as we will see, as he did with Stephen (Acts 7:5 shortly after he orchestrated the murder of Jesus. We read of Paul having to be rescued by the Romans from another angry Jewish mob bent on stoning a Jewish heretic in Acts 22:22-24. John adds a helpful interpretive note that all of this maneuvering is under the sovereign providential hand of God (18:32).Had the Sanhedrin possess the right to execute Jesus, they undoubtedly would have stoned Him to death, for stoning was prescribed by the law (Lev. 20:27). Crucifixion was the Roman method which Jesus had foretold (John 3:14; 12:32, 33).
[27] John’s narrative assumes the reader knows this event (probably from reading Luke’s account) because John has Pilate mention “king of the Jews” in vs. 33 when he confronts Jesus for the first time, and no one has made that accusation yet in John’s account. Many scholars believe John wrote his account to supplement the 3 synoptic gospels so he omitted certain incidents because they were already covered by Matthew, Mark and Luke (cf, John 20:30-31).
[28] That great expansive Empire had politically united a huge variety of races, cultures, languages, religions and world-views. And all of this human diversity was mingling and trading under the protection of the powerful Roman army.
[29] Because of the mingling of so many different nationalities, races, cultures, etc., group loyalties broke down and people thought of themselves simply as “Romans,” not as hyphenated Romans. For example, Paul calls himself a “Roman,” not a “Jewish-Roman” or a “Christian-Roman” in Acts 22:25. But because Rome was so enormous, the normal person couldn’t relate to the Roman Empire, and so people turned inward to find meaning to life. And because of the impersonal nature of the Empire, there was a revival of religious interest, what scholars call the Hellenistic quest for salvation. People were looking for hope and peace of mind and direction for their lives in an impersonal and enormous and changing Empire. Indeed, Gal. 4:4 may speak to this very issue. Therefore, in order for any social or intellectual movements to have any meaning to the general populace those Roman movements had to include everybody at the lowest common denominator–themselves. One major cause of Roman persecution of Christianity was its exclusive nature–it simply didn’t tolerate other Gods, unbiblical lifestyles, or competing ethical codes.
[30] That is, it was a time of combining and meshing and reconciling together of all sorts of ideas and beliefs into a Hodge-podge of world-views. There were seemingly endless combinations of Greek philosophical schools of thought with the so-called “mystery religions” from all over the far-flung empire. We can get a glimpse of this in Paul’s speech in Acts 17. Philosophically, the 4 major schools of thought (Stoicism, Epicureanism, Platonism and Aristotelianism) vying for attention and followers–traces of all of which can be found in the writings of Paul. Religiously, we find the various so-called “mystery religions.” We call them “mystery religions” because of their use of secret ceremonies that were thought to bring their initiates salvation and peace of mind. Theses religions claimed to satisfy the fundamental human hunger for some kind of higher level of life (i.e., salvation) that was acute during this time (These religions would worship fertility, or the Moon , or the Sun, or Mother earth, or the Emperor, or the divine Goddess of the Universe, or whatever.) And all of this was mixed and matched in a smorgasbord of world-views.
[31] as Francis Schaeffer would say.
[32] He continues with Caiaphas (in my paraphrase):But Caiaphas, it is your custom, commemorating the saving release at the Exodus for me as pro-curator, to savingly release one prisoner at your Passover celebration (pasca) as a symbol. Do you want your king back, the so-called, “king of the Jews?” (vs. 38-39)And the Sanhedrin shout: “No, not him. You’ve got him, you keep him. Give us Bar-abbas (whose name ironically means “son of the father”) (cf, Acts 3:13-14). (vs. 40)So, even the religious leaders choose who they will follow, depending on their circumstances and needs, not on who their God gives them.
[33] And later to the Corinthians, Paul says this kingdom of Jesus is not defended by the armament of the world, but the argument of the mind (2 Cor. 10:4).
[34] And so you and I are to respond to Pilate and to Caiaphas by saying, “Christianity is truth because Jesus was truth in everything He did and said.” For Jesus said,I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6 John, in his 1st letter, continues this theme of truth by telling us that Biblical Christianity is characterized by right doctrine, and right doctrine comes only from the truth of the Scriptural revelation of God: 1) Do we believe the right doctrine (2:18-27; 4:1-6, 13-21)? 2) Are we obedience to the right doctrine (2;3-6; 2:28-3:10)? 3) Do we express the right doctrine (2:7-11; 3:11-18; 4:7-12)? His character, His acts, His will–and the revelation of us–our sin, our need of a Redeemer, and our holiness.
[35] John in his 3rd letter, living in the same pluralistic environment, summed up the power of truth in the life of the individual Christian to live a pleasing life before God when John exclaimed,I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in (love, tolerance, kindness — No!) — walking in the truth (vs. 4).And Paul in 1 Tim. 3:15 proclaims that the watching world will know by the “conduct” of us Christians that we are God’s children, because the “church of the living God is the pillar and foundation of the truth.”
[36] I The Greek term “truth” (alatheias) used in these passages means “that which corresponds to reality .” n December l968, Kathy and I went to L’Abri, Switzerland to spend our first wedding anniversary with Francis and Edith Schaeffer. We were on the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ in Europe at the time and our Americanized Christianity was getting eaten-up in secularized England. I learned a great many things from Dr. Schaeffer at the time but the most astonishing thing I learned from him was that all truth leads to Jesus Christ, and that I should have no fear of ever learning anything that is true that will undermine Christianity; for whatever is true is, by definition, divine (Phil. 4:8). There will never be a philosophic system or scientific discovery that will disprove one thing in the Bible. What a freeing and empowering thing that was for me to learn so many years ago. It literally saved my faith–the truth, indeed, set me free (John 8:32)!
[37] Christ ought to be embraced because He alone explains what is. Christ alone gives us a worldview that explains reality. And we ought to be so persuaded of that worldview that we live lives that commend Christianity to our truth-denying post-modern watching society. And it is watching. The truth of Christianity is not only for Caiaphas and Pilate, Jew or Gentile, but also male and female, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, wise and foolish, but also for the sexually immoral, the idolater, adulterer, fornicator, the homosexual, the thief, the drunk, swindler, and slanderer. Paul says, indeed, some of the Corinthian believers in the Truth were just such as these afore-mentioned (1 Cor. 6:9-11).
[38] These are the challenges we face as we seek to communicate Christianity in this “present time.” There is a “famine of hearing the Words of the Lord” in our land, and the current generation of “strong young men and lovely young women faints for thirst” without it, as Amos prophesied centuries ago (8:11-13).
[39] Benediction: “Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him, to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen” (Rom. 16:25-27)
