035 - Truth on Trial

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, if you were on trial for your life, what would you be interested in? Hey, I'd want to tell the truth. The truth, because the truth is important.

And that's what Jesus talked about with Pilate at the trial for his life. Isn't that interesting? Today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning and welcome. I'm Dorothy. And I'm Jim.

And we are here at our dining room table. This is More Than Ink for our weekly conversation with you about what God's Word says. Did you read the second half of John 18?

Did you notice anything? We've been in the garden with Jesus and now we are dealing with the beginning of the trials. Yeah, we've already had some of those trials and we continue this very long night. By the way, this whole narrative in John 18 takes place in the dark before sunrise. Which is illegal. Which is illegal.

You need to have public trials. But just keep in mind as we read through this narrative that everyone who enters this story is probably being woke out of bed. And think of it like being one, two, three in the morning.

And it's really a rush job. And it tells you something important about the mindset of the religious leaders who wanted to get rid of Jesus. Because they could have just said, we'll arrest the guy, find him in the garden, put him in jail, we'll wake up tomorrow morning fresh and we'll just deal with it. But they couldn't do that because tomorrow was the Passover.

Right. So we've got religious reasons we can't do this. We have to act now.

We've got to push it through right now. So this is the desperate attempt to push through the trial of Jesus and to convict him and to get him killed. So we're starting off in verse 19 and should I read? No, let me read it. Okay, you'll read.

Okay, here we go. Okay, so the high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. And Jesus answered him, I've spoken openly to the world.

I've always taught in synagogues and in the temple where all Jews come together. I've said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who've heard me what I said to them.

They know what I said. And when he said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand saying, is that how you answer the high priest? Jesus answered him, if what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong. But if what I said is right, why do you strike me?

Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest. Wow, this is such a travesty of justice. Because I mean, we do this today. You know, you go into a courtroom, you have a judge. And the judge listens to a prosecutor who brings out the accusation, a defense attorney who defends against the accusation. And then you bring in witnesses to substantiate the accusations or to refute the accusations. And none of that goes on here.

But they should have. They should have in even a Jewish court. You're supposed to have witnesses. But who is it that the high priest is asking to witness? Jesus himself. Well, he had said earlier in his ministry, I am the one who witnesses on my own account.

Right. And the father witnesses to me. But it's illegal for the high priest to do this.

You know, we talk about taking the fifth. You cannot be forced to incriminate yourself. What they're asking Jesus to do is incriminate himself. They're asking him to be the accuser.

They're asking him to be the witness against himself. So he says, ask the ones who've heard me. Bingo. That's exactly. They know what I said. That's the legal thing. He's telling them, do the legal thing. Ask the people listening. And by the way, I haven't spoken this stuff in secret.

Okay, so it's interesting that this is taking place in the earshot of the people who are standing out in the courtyard. Yes. And Peter is out there.

Yes. And he has been hearing this exchange. He could be a witness. He may be quaking in his sandals at this point thinking, uh-oh, now they're going to ask me. And he's the one who had said, well, you're the guy, Lord Jesus, to whom else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

Yeah. So he could have come and borne witness. It's frustrating here because there doesn't seem to be any witnesses. So Kip is saying, you need to incriminate yourself.

So, you know, so what are you doing? Well, the other gospels tell us that there were witnesses, but then they were lying. Yes. And I have to believe it's after Jesus refused to incriminate himself. That's possible. So that's why in 21, Jesus says, why do you ask me?

This is not process. You have to have witnesses. You know, ask those who heard me. By the way, too, you remember they sent those guys to arrest Jesus back in John 7? You know, they sent the guys who represented the high priest and they said, go arrest the guy.

Oh, and they came back. And they said, well, you know, no one's quite spoken like this guy. Nobody ever talked like this guy. So they could have asked those guys to step forward and say, you wouldn't listen to them. But they didn't have anything to contribute to this prosecution. And they would say something completely different like, we tried to arrest him, but his teaching is so full of integrity. Yeah, so they're trying to get Jesus to hang himself. Exactly.

And that's the real injustice in this first paragraph here. They're trying to, they're way outside of the bounds, way outside of the bounds. And so what Jesus is asking them to do, you know, ask the other people. He's not being impudent. He's saying this is the process. And so this officer stands by him and kind of smacks him. He's saying, you're not being respectful to the high priest. Well, because he's calling the high priest out because he's going outside of the process. Because he's breaking the law.

And he's not accusing him. He's just saying, look, this is what you're supposed to do is ask witnesses. So this guy who's probably carrying favor with the high priest, who wants to look like a strong arm, you know, he smacks Jesus. And then Jesus rightly so in a court of law when we talk about witnesses in verse 23. He says, you know, if what I said is wrong, you know, bear witness about the wrong. You tell me, are you being a witness? You tell me what I said is wrong.

But if it's what I said is right, then why do you strike me? So he actually condemns the guy who struck him. Because he's not really disagreeing with Jesus' testimony.

And Jesus is saying, contradict my testimony, you got something to do. Okay, so this first encounter is with Annas, who was a previous high priest. He's the father-in-law of the current high priest, Caiaphas. So Caiaphas doesn't appear to be in this conversation. It doesn't seem to be.

It says in verse 24 that Annas is going to send him to Caiaphas because Jesus had said, you're breaking the law and who really holds the office of high priest right now. So that's kind of interesting to me. Yeah, so it's a total illegal process. So Jesus' answers aren't really being evasive. He's saying, let's go by the book, guys.

Let's go by the book. And they're not going by the book. And at every point, he's highlighting their hypocrisy. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's indicting to them. It's indicting to Annas. I mean, it's embarrassing, which is why this sort of cuts it off. And he sends him off to Caiaphas because he realizes, well, Jesus just called us on being out of process. And we don't have any witnesses here. Yeah.

Yeah. Now Peter, verse 25, was standing and warming himself. This is the second time John has told us. He's in the same place. Peter's standing out with the other guys, just getting warm at the fire, pretending that he's a nobody.

Hanging out with the guys who probably arrested Jesus. So they said to him, you're also not one of his disciples, are you? And he denied it and said, I am not.

Ding, number two. One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, didn't I see you with him in the garden? Then Peter again denied it. And at once, a rooster crowed.

Yikes. So Jesus had told Peter, you know, Peter, before the cut crows, you'll deny me three times. And there it is. And there it is. Yeah, he denied him three times.

And I mentioned last time that this time it's even more forceful than with just the servant girl who said, aren't you one of these guys? Here's someone who is actually a relative of Malchus, says, no, wait a second. He might have actually been there. He might have gone with Malchus. But it could possibly be that when Malchus came home with blood all over his toga, but with an ear on his head, he might have told some relatives.

This guy might have been one of those guys. We don't know. I wonder about him.

What is his story? I know. Oh, my soul. I'm really fantasized about writing a one-act play with Malchus. That'd be great.

It would just be really fun. But yeah, we just don't know much about it. But we do know his name. So when you get to heaven, you can ask around and maybe he can tell the story.

But you know, when we're reading this narrative and these details are repeated, why does John repeat that Peter was warming himself, he was standing outside, he was hearing it? You know, where do you fit in this story? Yeah. Where do you be standing at the fire, warming yourself, listening, horrified, terrified that maybe somebody's going to call on you to testify?

Right. And partially willing to be involved because you're there, you're not hiding in the bushes, but then not enough involved to actually stand up for who Jesus is when witnesses could have been called. And we don't know where the rest of them were.

No, we don't. It just says that they ran away. Yeah, we don't know where. But they're clearly not in the narrative in any of the Gospels. Well, because as I said, I think last week that it struck me on this reading that this is a story contrasting Jesus and Peter. Yeah. Where Jesus is saying, I am, I am the truth. And Peter's saying, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.

Who are you standing with? Which is a lie. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. So you know, in a real sense, this entire debacle of the of the arrest and all these trials and stuff like that is, is really illuminating for the apostles themselves.

Maybe what they're made of or maybe what they're not made of. They thought they were disciples, they thought they were followers, but it only goes so far. Yeah, because just a couple hours before, Peter had said, hey, I'm willing to die with you. Right. And he carried that little sword to the garden and was completely ineffective with it. Right.

Yeah, exactly. And you know, I might point out too, have you ever thought about what would happen if Jesus, if Peter had been successful with the sword? I mean, what if he'd actually lopped the head off of Malchus at that point? There would have been a bloody battle that would have ensued.

Many people estimate that there was roughly 500 Roman soldiers. Well, then the 11 would have been killed. Right.

Jesus would have been arrested anyway, but there would have been no sent ones to send. Yes, and that would all fall apart. Yeah. So in a real sense, when Peter wields that sword, God keeps him from being too catastrophic. And yet he's totally exposed for the ineptitude and the misunderstanding. Exactly.

That he is carrying. And the Malchus thing makes us wonder from now until eternity, was it true that maybe the people in the later church recognized Malchus's name? We don't know.

Could be. But there's something that happened there and God kept it from being a catastrophe, even though Peter's intentions were good. Right.

But God says no. Yeah. Yeah. They were mistaken. They were mistaken. But they were good.

But they were good. Okay, well, let's move on. Let's go with Jesus in front of Pilate.

I'll read this section, 28. Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. By the way, you notice they didn't get much done at Caiaphas's house.

Yeah, the other gospels give us a little more detail of some of these other conversations. But John just says, let's cut to the chase here. Exactly. Let's get straight to Pilate. So they go from Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters.

It was early morning and they themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters so that they would not be defiled but could eat the Passover. That ought to stop us in our tracks. Yeah. How about that? Pilate holding an illegal trial.

An illegal trial. Right. And yet they're not going to set foot in the Roman governor's house so that they won't be defiled. Yeah. So they can ceremonially observe the Passover.

We need to be clean. Oh. Yeah. And by the way, just to remind you, this isn't the Passover lamb we're talking about. That was the night before. But there's feasting that goes on after that that you'd be excluded from in the Passover celebration.

So that's what they're talking about. We need to remain clean and we cannot walk into a Gentile's house and remain clean. What irony. I mean, what hypocrisy. Because they're in the process of trying to get the king of Israel killed.

Wow. So because they couldn't go into the house, Pilate comes out. Verse 29. So Pilate went outside them and said, well, so what accusation do you bring against this man? And they answered him, well, if this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to. That's pretty specific. What, do you think we're dummies?

And 31. So Pilate said to them, well, take him yourselves. Judge him by your own law. And the Jews said to him, well, it's not lawful for us to put anyone to death.

And this was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die. Yeah, let's stop right there. Wow. Yeah.

So yeah, so they went in, and you know, I think this is wonderfully accommodating of Pilate. He's been woken up in the middle of the night. Well, it's early, early morning. Yeah, but I think he's.

Remember the rooster has crowed. I think he might be in the problem. Regardless, he's probably inconvenienced. He hasn't had his coffee yet.

Let's put it that way. Yeah, he's inconvenienced. And there's these rabble rousers outside about some guy, and it's those Jews, and he comes out of the house.

It's okay. So he does actually, he does the proper approach as opposed to the beginning of this. He says, okay, well, so what's your accusation? And that's what you do.

You ask the prosecutor, what's the accusation? What has he done? Good for Pilate. That's what he's supposed to do. And then instead of bringing to him a criminal statement, they just say, if he wasn't doing evil, we wouldn't be here.

Like totally uncommittal. But they didn't have any legal authority to put anyone to death. I know, but they also didn't have a legal crime.

A legal crime. That's right. So they couldn't state anything.

They just basically said, hey, trust us. This is evil. So there you go. And yet Jesus had said over and over and over again, they're going to hand me over to the Gentiles who will lift me up. And I will die.

I will be put to death. And that term lifting up, which he uses again and again and again. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John all use it several times in John. When the Son of Man is lifted up. It's clearly a reference to being lifted up on a pole or lifted up on a cross. He said that early in the conversation with Nicodemus in John 3.

So yeah, it's been said many times. So we have to have the crucifixion take place. It has to be a Roman execution. That's a Roman means of execution. Yeah, which the Jews, the Jewish means of execution was stoning. But under the Romans, they were not allowed to stoning one to death.

Yeah. So this fulfills the word that Jesus said about how he was going to die. In fact, at the time he says that back in the earlier chapters, John explains for us to kind of prefigure it.

That's what he's talking about right here. And also that he'd be delivered to the Gentiles, which is a crazy thing in many respects. And that shows up many times in the Gospel. I will be delivered over to the Gentiles.

And here you are being delivered over to Pilate who's representing the Gentiles. So take your concordance and look for that phrase. Lift it up or put to death. Lift it up. Depending on what translation. But just look in the Gospels and see how many times Jesus had said the Son of Man must be lifted up.

Must be lifted up. And see where it says he's delivered to the Gentiles because here it is. Because he had said it again and again and again. And it just went over their heads. They just didn't get it. And it's really a very amazing thing according to the narrative because these guys are mad with Jesus. The religious leaders are mad with Jesus. And you would think they would just take things into their own hands. Why involve the Gentiles at all?

I mean, it really doesn't make any sense. There are some reasons why they can't because of legally killing people and stuff like that. But later on they stoned Stephen. So that was not really a legal action so much as it was a mob event in many respects. Yeah, that was a lynching. Yeah, exactly. But even still you would figure them to be central to it and central to the execution. But interestingly, the Gentiles are going to be involved in it.

And Jesus prophesied about that and boom, here it's happening. So here you have Pilate who at this point I see Pilate as kind of a... He's an accommodating kind of governor.

I mean, he's doing okay. He's meeting with these people. He was not an accommodating governor.

He was a bad governor. There was trouble the whole time. But in this particular instance I'm saying... Well, we need to press on because this conversation between Pilate and Jesus is critical.

Yeah, 33. So Pilate entered his quarters again and called Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews? Good question. And Jesus answered, Do you say this on your own accord or did others say it to you about me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me.

What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.

But my kingdom is not from the world. Then Pilate said to him, So you are a king? Jesus answered, You say that I'm a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Pilate said to him, What is truth? And after he'd said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him. But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover.

So do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews? They cried out again, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. A robber.

We want the robber. So Pilate takes Jesus inside knowing that the religious leaders will not follow him. So he can have a conversation privately. They go inside to have a private conversation with Jesus and basically the first thing he asks, again legally so, is, Are you the king of Jews? And Jesus says, Who's testifying that against me? He's asking who the witnesses are. That's why he says in 34, Do you say this on your own? Are you accusing me as a witness or are others saying, Are they my witnesses? So in a way Jesus is going back to the process of the law. Who's bringing the accusation?

That's the only reason why he responds during 34. It's a process question. And then Pilate answers, Well, am I a Jew? This is a Jewish question. You're asking the wrong guy, dude.

You're asking the wrong guy. But he says, But it's your own nation that seems to be delivering you over to me. So come on, what have you done?

What have you done? So he's doing the same thing that the high priest did. He's saying, I want you to self-accuse yourself. Which technically is not lawful. He's supposed to have witnesses and Pilate's supposed to be the judge. So he's asking him to self incriminate himself.

What have you done? And Jesus says in 36, Well, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were this world, my servants would be fighting that I might not be delivered to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from this world.

So he's making a good legal point right there. He's basically saying, Look, Caesar has nothing to worry about for me. He would, if I had a horde of people outside with swords and they were fighting all your soldiers, you would have a beef with me as king, but you don't. Do you see the soldiers? No, my soldiers are not. Because my kingdom is from another place. It's of another kind entirely. Exactly.

So in a sense, he's letting Pilate off the hook. He's saying, You don't have a beef with me because I'm not trying to cause an armed insurrection here. Because do you see him?

No, you don't see him. But I am a king of another place and time, in a sense. So then Pilate presses me and, Ah, so you are a king. You are a king. And Jesus says, Well, you say that I'm king and for this purpose I was born. He's saying a big yes right here. I was born and for this purpose I've come into the world to take over the world.

No. To bear witness about the truth. That there is another kingdom. Exactly. Another king.

Yeah, of another type. And so I bear witness. It's an interesting thing that instead of a king who comes and conquers with force, he's a king that conquers and frees people through truth. He's come to bring truth. And that rang for me when I read this again most frequently recently because it's, because here you have a king who is coming to free us from the captivity of sin.

Almost like a rescuer, like a commander and a captain does to come and rescue from that. He's coming to bring force against the places of evil who are holding us captive. Holding us captive. And it's truth that does this. He does this through his truth.

The truth about what? About who he is. Who he is. And the nature of man. Who we are. Exactly.

What sin is. Right. A savior. Yep. So in a sense, in a sense, he has established himself as king through the truth of how the way things really are.

He always has been a king. That's the definition of truth, isn't it? The way things really are. The way they really are. Not the way you think they are, not the way you'd like them to be, not the self-deceived, you know, well, this is my truth kind of point of view. He says, nope, there is a truth, an absolute truth. And I am the witness of it.

I'm the way. The truth. And the lie.

And the life. And no one comes to the Father but through me. Yeah, so what do you make of this closing comment by Pilate?

Cynical or just quizzical or what is truth? Because, you notice, there's no reply from Jesus and Pilate doesn't wait around for an answer. Well, John doesn't say he doesn't wait around, but he doesn't include it. He does, he says, because this is not about Pilate. Exactly.

This is about the Jews and their rejection of the living word who has come and dwelt among them and made the glory of God plainly visible. Yeah, and it tends to give us the impression that Pilate's not really interested in truth. Right. Not necessarily. Well, he's just interested in maintaining the peace. Right. Because there had been trouble after trouble after trouble under his governorship and he was going to get yanked out of there and sent back to Rome. Right.

If this all went bad. Which he eventually does. He does. Yeah, he does. But it makes me think of when Paul wrote Timothy, I think it's in 2 Timothy, he talks about these people who are always learning, but they're never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Yeah. I think that's what Jesus is thinking about Pilate right here. He's not really interested in truth. So the discussion stops with Pilate saying what is truth.

Yeah, because Pilate's a pragmatist. Exactly. He just wants to know what works, not what's true. I want to have breakfast and my cup of coffee, so let's just get this thing done with.

Yeah. So it says right after that that he went back outside to the Jews, because remember they're still outside waiting to hear the result of the conversation. And the result of the conversation blows them away, I find no guilt in him. And now they're thinking, well nuts, we're stuck. We thought he would do something to kill him. So then in a way to kind of pacify the crowd, Pilate comes around and says, well you have this tradition, we can release somebody. Let's say we release somebody, and what do you say we release this guy, Jesus?

What do you say about that? And of course it's a move to appeal to the popular folks, because if he gives that choice to the leaders, they're not going to go for it. And of course it turns around, they say give us Barabbas, which it backfires on Pilate. Now he has to keep Jesus, because he says I'll release one, and now he has to keep Jesus even though he's found no guilt in him. He thought he was doing an accommodating thing, and in the end he kind of shot himself to the foot, and now he's stuck with Jesus and has to do something with him. And Barabbas, John tells us, was a robber, he was more than a robber, he was associated with an insurrection in which people died.

He truly was a threat to Rome. Isn't it interesting that Jesus, a few chapters back, in chapter 10 had said, the robber is the one who comes to take life from the sheep, but I'm the good shepherd. But here, the religious leaders of the nation of Israel say, no, give us a robber instead of this good shepherd. What a warped sense of values.

Wow. And you might notice the fact that when Pilate comes out and says I find no guilt in him, it actually fulfills the claims about Jesus that he didn't die for his own guilt. He died for our sins, not his own sin. And even a pagan-like Pilate looked at Jesus and said, he has no sins that I can see that are worth anything. So in a strange kind of backdoor way, this pagan leader actually validates the claim about the fact that Jesus is sinless.

It's fascinating. So, you know, just to wrap this up, because boy, our time is gone, but we just skipped over completely this thing that Jesus said, everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Exactly. You know, in reading this narrative, that just struck me in the face. Do I listen to the voice of Jesus, the one who is the word of God sent to speak truth?

Right. Jesus already said that truth is a statement of the way things really are. The way things really are.

Are you listening to God as creator, his thoughts about the way things really are, or do you prefer your version of the way things are? For every single person, there's a different opinion about how things are, but Jesus is saying, if you want to know how things really are, you've got to listen to me. He said, I came to give you life and to give it abundantly.

Exactly. And he as king has come and conquered our hearts by using the truth, and we agreed with him about our situation with sin. We agreed with him about his offer to deal with the problem of our sin. We have actually embraced that truth, and through the Holy Spirit, that's changed everything in our lives. And that's why Jesus gave.

Well, darn. Our time is up. We're going to go into John 19 next week, so read ahead with us. And we're approaching the season when we fix on the crucifixion and the resurrection, so these are good ones. My goodness, it's apropos for this season, so I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. We'd love to have you back next week on More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. Shipper, perky, coffee, dining table. Okay, in three, two, one.