LOGICAL INJUSTICE

So, there’s this thing I’ve heard in church for decades ---- well, one of several things ---- that just never quite sounded right to me.  When my preachers and Sunday school teachers talked about Jesus’ trial and crucifixion they explained that Jesus’ Jewish accusers brought Him to Pilate Jewish courts didn’t have the authority to issue the death penalty.  That sounded logical.  The Jews were a conquered people living under Roman occupation as second-class citizens in their own land.  It made sense that Rome would limit the legal power of Jewish courts.  My teachers even had a Scripture reference.  

In John 18:31 Pilate tried to remand Jesus’ case back to the Jewish Councils.   He said, “You take Him and judge Him according to your law.”

Therefore the Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.”

The Jews in this verse were experts on the Law. They said what the law said, so that must be right.

Right?

Do you remember the story of the woman they caught committing adultery and dragged before Jesus while He was teaching in the Temple.  Yes?  No?  Anyway,  it’s in John 8.

John 8:4-5  they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned.

Stoned.  As in, “to death.”  They didn’t need Pilate’s permission then.

And just to be clear that this wasn’t some gender-specific exception.  Go down a little further to John 8:59  and John 10:31 because in those passages, they tried to stone Jesus.  As in, “to death.”  Just a few months after the crucifixion, Acts 7 states that the same religious-political authority that told Pilate they didn’t have the legal authority to put anyone to death exercised their legal authority to stone Stephen to death for preaching Jesus.

So yeah, they said that they couldn’t carry out the death penalty, but they could.

In the late night and early morning between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion, two separate trials, presided over by the high priest emeritus Annas and reigning high priest Caiaphas, had both found Jesus guilty of criminal blasphemy.   And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death (Mark 14:64).  So why didn’t they carry out the sentence?  They had the authority to hit Jesus in the head with rocks until He died.  They could have thrown Him off a cliff on to the stones below (Luke 4:28-30). They had won.

Why did the winning prosecutors appeal their own case to Pilate?

Because --- and this is the puzzle piece that I hadn’t previously connected to the crucifixion story --- because of Deuteronomy 17.

The rulings of the Sanhedrin Councils were based on the Mosaic law like American court cases are based on the Constitution and state criminal codes.

Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness.

The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from among you. (Deuteronomy 17: 6-7)

Every Jewish death penalty case required the testimony of multiple eye witnesses.  The witnesses in a capital case had to participate in carrying out the death sentence.  In fact  the  hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death.

Witnesses had to be the first to cast stones.

You couldn’t testify that, for example, a man had blasphemed Moses and the Temple, falsely claimed to be the Son of God and threatened to destroy the Temple and overturn the scriptures and then just go home.  You had to go out in public and by casting the first stone  declare that you had personally seen and heard everything in your sworn testimony.

Oh, and another statue of the Mosaic Law stated that

If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, . . . then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you.. .  Your eye shall not pity: life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. (Deuteronomy 19:16, 19, 21)

If the community found out you had lied in a capital blasphemy case, they were required to stone you.  As in, “to death.”

. .  . many bore false witness against Him, but their testimonies did not agree (Mark 14:56).

None of the witnesses were willing to risk their lives on stories they couldn’t even keep straight among themselves, especially when just a few days earlier, on Palm Sunday, all of Jerusalem had been shouting “Hosanna” and praising Jesus as “He who comes in the name of the Lord” (John 12:13).

Even though the high priests had double-convictions against Jesus, they couldn’t carry out the sentence because nobody was willing to cast the first stone.

And that is why they took Jesus to Pilate. 

It’s like when a local district attorney  forces through a conviction on shaky evidence.  He asks for and gets the death penalty but he knows his case won’t hold up under the scrutiny of a death penalty appeal so he kicks the defendant over to the feds.  In federal court they change the charge to something terrorism-related and let politics run its crooked course.

Jesus was arrested for blashphemy against Moses.  He was executed for treason against Caesar.

Pilate never found Jesus guilty.  At least twice the Roman governor declared, “I find no fault in Him.” (John 18:38; 19:4). He gave the order for Crucifixion anyway. 

Politics.

The authorities who brought Jesus before Pilate claimed to be settling a legal technicality.  But they were really using Jesus to enforce their personal and political agenda.  They claimed to be following the Law, but the letter and spirit of their Laws was against them. 

My old teachers assumed that since the exchange in John 18:31 took place in a legal setting that it was an accurate explanation of the law.  It wasn’t.  Legal authorities lied about what the Law said.  The result was an innocent man executed for crimes that had absolutely nothing to do with Him.

Four Points:

1)  Legal injustice happens.  Even under a legal system derived from the tenets of Scripture, this kind of injustice actually happens. Stop saying that it doesn’t.

2) Injustice happens to the innocent.  No one was more innocent than Jesus.

3)  Injustice didn’t just start happening.  The same pattern of injustice that led to Jesus’ crucifixion are in play today in America, but it’s not unique to our times or to America’s particular racial and social history. 

4)  The fact that injustice happens in no excuse for letting injustice happen. And though it was prophesied to happen, it doesn’t diminish that sinfulness of those who participated in and kept silent in the face of the unjust legal activity.

It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come! (Luke 17:31)

P.S.  Just because you don’t give the order or issue the verdict doesn’t mean you aren’t part of the problem.   As Jesus told Judge Pilate, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.”

Maybe you heard something different.  Maybe you heard that judges are always fair and that if people go to jail they deserve it.  Maybe you heard the reasons why people who kill unarmed people go free.  Maybe you heard those reasons from someone in legal authority.  I’m sure it sounded logical. 

But you have access to a Bible, don’t you.  A complete Bible. Read it.  Scrutinize what you heard against the whole witness of Scripture.  Pray and think.

Pray and think.