Jesus Before Pilate (1-16)

Pilate then had Jesus flogged and likely encouraged the soldiers to abuse and humiliate Jesus at will. The flogging would have been done with a whip, with bits of metal in the end to tear the flesh off the back. 

No doubt Pilate imagined that a flogging, a crown of thorns, a purple robe, and the beating of His face senseless with their hands surely would satisfy the Jews' desire for blood and relieve him from having to order the execution (1-3).

Then Pilate brought Jesus out to the crowd, indicating that he had questioned Jesus with beating and could still find no guilt. Jesus would have been unrecognizable—His face cut, bleeding and swollen—as Pilate announced, “Behold the Man.” He would have been a pitiful sight, and anyone with a shred of compassion would have thought enough had been done to an innocent man, but not the Sanhedrin. Their hunger for blood could not be assuaged by a near-death beating. They were so filled with hate, so empty of love, so ambitious for power and position that the chief priests and the officers began to chant, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” Pilate again quieted them down and told them Jesus was guiltless in his judgment. He refused to be the executioner and told them to go crucify Him themselves (4-6).

The Jewish leaders then gave Pilate the real reason for all their fears and insecurities regarding Jesus: He had claimed to be the Son of God, which was a claim to be equal with God. This was a claim they could in no way disprove; in fact, there was ample evidence to prove its truth. Their assertion was that, according to their law, this claim meant He must die. They considered this claim to be blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16), and they were going to be satisfied with nothing less than the execution of Jesus (7).

Pilate was beside himself with fear. He entered again into his private office area. Pilate's own wife entered at this time and told Pilate to have nothing to do with Jesus (Matthew 27:19). Pilate then asked Jesus where He was from. Jesus gave no answer (8-9). According to prophecy, Jesus kept silent and did not answer Pilate (Isaiah 53:7). Again and again, John was showing all the fulfillment of scripture in Jesus’ death. This was essential to John's Gospel. 

The time had come for Pilate to shred his interest for truth and justice and be driven by his ambition to appease the Jews and keep the peace. If the Jews stirred up problems for Pilate, he would be in danger of losing a new post because of his lackluster performance in Judea. The Judean assignment was not a prized position. No doubt Pilate was seeking a higher prize, and the Jews were threatening complaints against him if he were not to give them what they wanted in Jesus’ execution. 

Pilate was shocked that Jesus would not answer him and asked if He realized what kind of authority he, the Roman governor of Judea, possessed—the authority to release or crucify (10).

Jesus answered Pilate, letting him know His authority had been granted by God. Jesus knew Pilate would perform what had been predestined: His Crucifixion (Acts 4:28). Then Jesus told Pilate that Caiaphas, who had handed Jesus over to him, had the greater sin. 

Pilate had had enough. His conscience was smitten. He knew Jesus to be right; the trial was a sham. Pilate sought every means possible to let Jesus go, but the Sanhedrin had the crowd stirred to a frenzy. The Jews finally used their last ploy. They told Pilate that if he were to let Jesus go, they would send a report to Tiberius that he was not a friend to Caesar. This was another way of saying they would get Caesar to come and do a full investigation of Pilate's political work-product. Such an investigation would have revealed multiple incidents of malfeasance. They then announced that anyone who called himself a king was an enemy to Caesar. Pilate was able to figure out this entire string of logic—he was in the vice of extortion (11-12).

So, when Pilate heard this accusation, he brought Jesus out to the judgment seat, a stone-paved area called Gabbatha in Aramaic. We have no clear meaning of this word. The image here was Pilate in place, prepared to issue a formal execution order (13).

It was about noon on the day before the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Pilate brought Jesus out and presented Him to the Jews, announcing, “Behold your King” (14). Pilate here was provoking the Jews, calling Him their King. John picked up on the irony and recorded it in his Gospel. What Pilate meant as an insult was actually the truth. 

The Jews were a senseless maze of uncontrollable hate. They demanded a crucifixion. Pilate continued his adolescent goading, asking if he should really kill off their King. 

The chief priests then claimed an allegiance to Tiberius over Yahweh's Messiah—not just over Jesus the Messiah, but in essence, they were claiming Tiberius as their Messiah. What a statement and commitment just to get an innocent man murdered (15).

At long last, Pilate issued the execution order (16).

The Four Crucifiers (17-24)

John then described, from his perspective, the actual Crucifixion. At Golgotha, the place where Jesus was crucified, a nine-foot stake was placed in the ground. Jesus was made to carry the crossbeam to the Crucifixion site. This was a common custom among those crucified. Golgotha means skull; some assume it was because the place had some sort of a skull-like appearance (17). 

There they crucified Jesus, meaning they nailed His hands to the crossbeam He carried, hoisted the crossbeam upon the stake, and fastened it there. With His wrists nailed and His arms tied to the crossbeam, they then proceeded to drive a nail through His heels into a piece of wood just a couple of feet off the ground. The entire picture of the Crucifixion was one of shame and horror (18). On top of the stake above the crossbeam, Pilate had a placard fastened that read, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” (19). 

For hours, the crucified would hang in agony, naked, and struggling to breathe. To stave off asphyxiation, the crucified would push up off their feet to allow air into their lungs. As the crucified pushed themselves up for air, they would experience all sorts of muscle spasms. Eventually, the crucified would die from heart failure, loss of oxygen to the brain, or suffocation, and some even from shock. 

Many Jews who passed by the Crucifixion site read the inscription, which was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. The chief priests were offended by the wording and sought to have Pilate write, “This man said ‘I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate refused to change the inscription. The inscription was most likely written with gypsum on a board. This was commonly done to identify the crime the crucified had committed. Pilate rightly identified Jesus’ crime; they executed Him for being the King (20-22).

After Jesus was crucified, the executioners divided His clothing among the four of them. Some imagine Jesus being of Jewish descent and crucified with His loincloth, whereas, ordinarily, the condemned were crucified naked. When it came to the garment Jesus wore beneath His cloak, it was woven with one piece of cloth and was an expensive item, so the executioners did not tear it but cast lots for it (Psalm 22:18). John narrowed in on this point as it was another fulfillment of scripture (23-24).

The Four Women (25-27)

In contrast to the four heartless soldiers crucifying Jesus were four women:

• Jesus’ mother, Mary

• Jesus' mother's sister, Salome, mother to John and wife of Zebedee

• Mary, the mother of Clopas 

• Mary Magdalene

One tradition has Clopas as the brother of Joseph. Another links him with Cleopas of Luke 24:18, whom Jesus met on the road to Emmaus. “Clopas” is of Hebrew form, and “Cleopas” is the Greek form of the name.  

When Jesus saw the four women, He focused in on His mother and told her to behold her son and then told John, His cousin, to behold his mother. John's family had means, so John took his aunt into his home and cared for her for the rest of her life, it would seem (25-27).

The Death of Jesus (28-37) 

Of the seven recorded utterances of Christ on the cross, John recorded two of them. Jesus cried out, “I thirst”—the fifth saying, the one right after, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” 

Jesus, aware of the need to fulfill scripture, cried out the “I thirst” phrase (Psalm 42:1-2; 63:1).

In response, the soldiers gave Him sour wine at the end of a hyssop branch, soaked up in a sponge. All of this offering of sour wine was to fulfill scripture so all would know this was God's suffering Messiah (Psalm 69:21).

John then recorded the sixth set of spoken words from the cross, “It is finished.” The Greek word has the thought of “paid in full.” The redemptive price had been paid in full for the souls of the whole world. The redemption price for the entire world was finished, paid in full. 

With that, Jesus bowed His head, committed His Spirit into His Father's hands, (Luke 23:46) and then gave up His Spirit (28-30).

Since it was the Preparation for the Feast of Weeks, the Sanhedrin did not want the bodies hanging on the crosses at the beginning of the feast, so they asked that their legs be broken with an iron mallet to kill them off before sundown (31).

The soldiers proceeded to break the legs of the thieves crucified with Jesus, but when they came to Jesus, they recognized He was already dead (32-33).

One of the soldiers took his javelin, a three- to three-and-a-half foot lance with an iron edge attached to the end, and pierced Jesus. As soon as the spearhead pierced Jesus’ side, blood and serum poured out of His pericardium, evidence that He likely died of having given up His heart for the world. This also affirmed that Jesus was fully human, having literally died. 

John recorded all of this to again make the point that Christ's death was the fulfillment of Scripture. “None of His bones would be broken” (Psalm 34:20), and, “The people will look on the One pierced” (Zechariah 12:10).

The inclusion of these fulfillments of scripture were John's way of confirming his witness of them. The Crucifixion was no tragic accident in Christ's life but the prophetic fulfillment of the will of God (John 21:24) (34-37).  

Jesus' Burial (38-42)

Secretly, after Jesus' death was confirmed, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for His body. Joseph was a rich man (Matthew 27:57) who was waiting for God's Messiah to appear, and with Him, God's Kingdom (Mark 15:43). Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin but had not consented to their decision to seek Jesus' execution. Joseph was a discreet Jesus-seeker and an upright man. He was likely not notified of the mock early-morning trial thrown together against Jesus (Luke 23:50-51). Many scholars believe Arimathea was a place in Judea, so Joseph was one of Jesus' followers not from Galilee. He was a man who, although being a part of the Sanhedrin, very much feared the Sanhedrin, so even the burial of Jesus' body he handled with discretion (38).

Nicodemus, Jesus' nighttime visitor, was also a part of the Sanhedrin and came with Joseph, bringing with him 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes to prepare Jesus' body for burial. Myrrh was a strongly fragrant resin used in burial, along with an aloe powder. The application of the spices was to slow down the purification process and the odor of the body as it decomposed. No doubt, servants of both men helped with Jesus' body (39).

They took the body, bound Him with linen clothes, and then applied the spices thickly to the clothes, as was the custom of the burial of the Jewish body. None of the Gospels mention the most important act of preparing a body for burial, the washing of it (40).

Near to where Jesus was crucified was a garden. In the garden, Joseph owned a new, never-used-before tomb (41). Due to the haste in which the first Day of the Feast of Weeks was coming upon them, Joseph and Nicodemus placed Jesus’ body in that tomb (42). They were seeking to have Jesus buried by sundown. So much happened in such a short amount of time that it is hard to conceive it all. This act of love by these two men and their servants was a significant event in the Gospel presentation of all time; it is always: Jesus died, was buried, then resurrected. These men, these Sanhedrin and their slaves, along with the Roman soldiers, were the witnesses to the death of Jesus.