The Blending of Church and State (part 2 of 2) ...

This was a very unfortunate turn of events.  It made no sense to Pilate.  Why kill an innocent man, and let go a known criminal?  Pilate must resort to a plan B now in order to avoid being responsible for the shedding of innocent blood.  If there is hatred for Christ, perhaps Pilate can illicit pity for Him.  So John continues the story in chapter 19 and verse one saying … “Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.”  This punishment was the worst the Roman Empire had invented short of death.  A whip was used with broken shards of glass in the tips in order to rip flesh from the body on its return.  39 lashes were given, as 40 killed a man.  Having endured this torture the victim would never be the same.  But from Pilate’s point of view, at least He would be alive.  The Jews would have sympathy and curb their anger having seen this Man so close to death, and enduring so much pain.  Pilate could emerge guilt free as he was now simply picking the best of 2 bad options.

 

But the soldiers of Pilate had no philosophical idealism regarding truth.  They were men of blood.  They fought to live, and hated their enemies.  To them, Christ must have been guilty of fomenting revolt or Pilate would have never had Him punished so violently.  So the soldiers took it upon themselves to add to the punishment of their perceived enemy.  John continues in verse 2 … “And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, [verse 3] And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands.”  This was not done at the direction of Pilate.  Pilate was looking for a way out of this, not to simply be cruel.  Had cruelty been his goal, he could have simply elected to see Christ die on the cross from moment number one.  Though the acts of the soldiers would only lend credence to his plans now.  He could display the broken abused body of Christ, the humiliation He had endured, and hope to gain sympathy from this accusing crowd.

John continues in verse 4 … “Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. [verse 5] Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!”  Normally this sight would have been enough to turn the stomachs of the average citizen.  Only men of combat were used to seeing this much blood and pain.  This was sure to illicit sympathy, what more could anyone demand where it comes to meeting out punishment?  They responded in verse 6 … “When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.”  The response of evil to seeing that much pain and blood, was a demand for more.  Evil will never be satisfied until death is its result.  The hunger for more is ever present.  No amount of money, fame, glory, or gratification will ever satisfy the craving of evil, for evil must always demand more.  Where love would look at Christ in pity, even Pilate looked at Christ with pity.  Evil has no pity.  The demand of these men keeping themselves pure to partake of the Passover was for death.

Pilate responds in the same verse, effectively saying, “fine” go do it yourselves then, because I will not condemn him.  Pilate adds He has done nothing wrong, there is no fault in Him.  Even under the duress of the worst punishment Rome could envision before death; Christ has done nothing from which to find fault.  He has confessed no wrong doing, because He has done no wrongdoing.  He is a truly innocent man.  Pilate has never seen this before.  Most of us have done something we are not proud of.  When faced with nearly life ending torture and pain we are more likely to confess it, to get the pain to end.  But Christ had no such option, because He had done nothing wrong.  Pilate could simply not figure out why these men had it in for Christ.  But the Jews began to enlighten him when they responded in verse 7 … “The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”

There it is; the reason behind the hatred.  The pious Jews had found someone who they were not holier than.  They did not want to accept that “this” was the embodiment of their God on earth.  Pilate had been informed about the prophecies of the Messiah.  He understood the idea of a God walking among men.  His own Roman religions, based on those of the Greeks that preceded them, told stories of gods among men who carried with them great power.  Jesus had just told Pilate that He was a king, but not a king of this world.  Perhaps Jesus came from another world entirely.  Perhaps Jesus was from Olympus, or Jupiter, or Mars.  Now the miracles made sense.  The Jews believed in only one God and they did not want Jesus to be it.  But Pilate now saw how a diety might be a very real threat to the Jewish religion.  However the worse threat was to Pilate.  Could Pilate judge a real god?

John continues in verse 8 … “When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; [verse 9] And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.”  Pilate’s wife had a dream to avoid this man before him.  In Roman culture dreams were valued.  Pilate heard about all the miracles and now feared they were not stories, but in fact were true.  What is worse, what if the Jews were essentially correct?  What if this was the actual son of the only true God?  He asks Jesus to say where He is from.  But this time Jesus is silent.  The silence is worse for Pilate.  He sees He is uncovering truth.  Jesus likely is a god, but what if He is the real God?  Pilate attempts to assert power to get Christ to answer His questions.  He already knows torture won’t work.  Jesus has already been through more of that than any other prisoner he keeps.  So He tries to use the lure of freedom to get Christ to respond saying in verse 10 … “Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?”  Pilate could still kill Him, but more to the goal of he wanted to do, he wanted to release Him.

Jesus responds to Pilate in verse 11 … “Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.”  He does not deny He is a God.  What if Jesus is the God of Truth?  What if that is His special power?  Jesus recognizes that power comes from God above, and so tells Pilate that he is where he is, because of the power of God.  Pilate now sees that his own life is a result of the plans of God, the blessings of God.  Now stands before him, the God of Truth.   This is an injustice.  This is no longer a question about guilt or innocence.  This has become a quest to see the injustice ended.  Truth must be set free.  Truth must be restored to the world.  Pilate has abandoned completely his role as judge and now seeks to become the advocate for Christ.  He wants to be His defense attorney.  He wants to see Christ set free.  He now seeks every political favor, he employs every ability he has, to see Christ released.  He does not want the God of Truth to be killed by his own edict.  Taxes are just not that important.  It is likely then when he sends Christ to Herod to see if perhaps Herod will free Him.  John does not record this series of events in his gospel, but the mission of Pilot to set Christ free John does record. 

John states Pilate’s intent in verse 12 … “And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.”  Something was horribly wrong.  These people hated Caesar.  They constantly looked to revolt against Rome.  For them to be aligning themselves now with the very leader they hated in order to see this innocent man killed, was perhaps the best evidence that what Christ had said, was indeed the truth.  This king from another world, this God of Truth, how could he pose so great a threat to the Jewish religious leadership?  In verse 13 John continues … “When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. [verse 14] And it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! [verse 15] But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.”

The religious leadership had gone from accusing Christ to now accusing Pilate.  The reports that were sure to travel to Rome were; that Pilate had sided with a revolutionary against Rome, while the loyal priests were faithful to Caesar.  All the attempts to illicit sympathy had failed.  The crowd seemed almost more enraged.  The preparation for the Passover had already begun, yet these “pure” men continued to stay at the judgment hall in order to insure that murder took place, and Pilate did not release Christ while they attended to their religious duties.  No matter what, this Roman authority must be made to have Christ executed.  It was un-nerving to the priests to consider that in His brief time with Pilate, Christ may have made yet another convert to Himself.  If a Roman governor were susceptible to the teachings of Christ, who could possibly be safe.  The leadership had to insure the death of Christ, if that meant publicly declaring an allegiance ONLY to Caesar, then so be it.  The Jews were willing to align themselves to the thing they hated most, to see God die.  It is akin to having Jews with full knowledge of history aligning themselves to Neo-Nazi’s in order to see one of their own put to death.   The people would hate it.  The people would not understand.  But they so needed to see this threat to their control killed, they were willing to say anything, align with the devil himself, to see Christ killed once and for all.

The Jewish religious leaders would allow no compromise.  They would allow for nothing other than death.  So despite his best efforts, the only way to release Christ now, was to start a revolution of his own.  Pilate would be required to give his own life to see Christ released.  The costs were just too high.  Perhaps Pilate reasoned that the other gods might intervene on Christ’s behalf.  But no matter his thinking, whether it was weakness, or just exhaustion that led to capitulation, he finally gave in.  John records in verse 16 … “Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.”  It is the ultimate of ironies that in the union of Church and State, it became State who sought desperately to escape the union and see justice and mercy prevail.   Church was bent on murder.  Church ALWAYS is.  The compulsion of the conscience through law has no other end game than the murder of dissent.  State is merely the tool of murder, but it is Church that drives it, and allows for no other outcome.  Had Christ been arrested and tried by Roman authorities without any intervention or interest from the priests, He would have been released, likely without even the scouring.  Pilate was done with the question of His guilt in only a brief initial encounter.  State would have seen Christ set free.  It was Church that demanded He be killed.

When modern Christians seek to reunite Church and State, when they label this effort a return to family values, they put themselves on the same path that killed the Son of God.  A return to the values of God cannot be done by the pen of our lawmakers.  It can only be accomplished by our individual submission to Christ and His transformative love.  Our religious values need no “protection” the State can offer, rather they cannot be bound or benefited by anything the State purports to control.  Pilate had no authority that God had not granted him.  Our religion does not need the shackles of a partnership with the State.  It needs for us to embrace the love of Christ so fully that our very existence changes the world around us, and impacts each life we encounter.  This is the way to change the world for the better, to demonstrate love in action.  Control is not the province of our God.  It is not His way to end conflict.  Love is.  Choice is.  Freedom that results from it is.  Let us abandon the ideas of re-uniting with the power of the State, and seek instead to be re-united with the power of Love that comes from Christ alone.