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.”
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.
