XXIII.

(1-5) And the whole multitude of them arose.—See Notes on Matthew 27:11-14; Mark 15:2-5.

Luke

‘THE RULERS TAKE COUNSEL TOGETHER’

Luke 23:1 - Luke 23:12.

Luke’s canvas is all but filled by the persecutors, and gives only glimpses of the silent Sufferer. But the silence of Jesus is eloquent, and the prominence of the accusers and judges heightens the impression of His passive endurance. We have in this passage the Jewish rulers with their murderous hate; Pilate contemptuously indifferent, but perplexed and wishing to shirk responsibility; and Herod with his frivolous curiosity. They present three types of unworthy relations to Jesus Christ.

I. We see first the haters of Jesus.

So fierce is their hatred that they swallow the bitter pill of going to Pilate for the execution of their sentence. John tells us that they began by trying to get Pilate to decree the crucifixion without knowing Jesus’ crime; but that was too flagrant injustice, and too blind confidence in them, for Pilate to grant. So they have to manufacture a capital charge on the spot, and they are equal to the occasion. By the help of two lies, and one truth so twisted as to be a lie, they get up an indictment, which they think will be grave enough to compel the procurator to do as they wish.

Their accusation, if it had been ever so true, would have been ludicrous on their lips; and we may be sure that, if it had been true, they would have been Jesus’ partisans, not His denouncers.’ The Gracchi complaining of sedition’ are nothing to the Sanhedrim accusing a Jew of rebellion against Rome. Every man in that crowd was a rebel at heart, and would have liked nothing better than to see the standard of revolt lifted in a strong hand. Pilate was not so simple as to be taken in by such an accusation from such accusers, and it fails. They return to the charge, and the ‘more urgent’ character of the second attempt is found in its statement of the widespread extent of Christ’s teaching, but chiefly in the cunning introduction of Galilee, notoriously a disaffected and troublesome district.

What a hideous and tragic picture we have here of the ferocity of the hatred, which turned the very fountains of justice and guardians of a nation into lying plotters against innocence, and sent these Jewish rulers cringing before Pilate, pretending loyalty and acknowledging his authority! They were ready for any falsehood and any humiliation, if only they could get Jesus crucified. And what had excited their hatred? Chiefly His teachings, which brushed aside the rubbish both of ceremonial observance and of Rabbinical casuistry, and placed religion in love to God and consequent love to man; then His attitude of opposition to them as an order; and finally His claim, which they never deigned to examine, to be the Son of God. That, they said, was blasphemy, as it was, unless it were true,-an alternative which they did not look at. So blinded may men be by prejudice, and so mastered by causeless hatred of Him who loves them all!

These Jewish rulers were men like ourselves. Instead of shuddering at their crime, as if it were something far outside of anything possible for us, we do better if we learn from it the terrible depths of hostility to Jesus, the tragic blindness to His character and love, and the degradation of submission to usurpers, which must accompany denial of His right to rule over us. ‘They hated Me without a cause,’ said Christ; but He pointed to that hatred as sure to be continued towards Him and His servants as long as ‘the world’ continues the world.

II. We have Pilate, indifferent and perplexed.

Luke’s very brief account should be supplemented by John’s, which shows us how important the conversation, so much abbreviated by Luke, was. Of course Pilate knew the priests and rulers too well to believe for a moment that the reason they gave for bringing Jesus to him was the real one, and his taking Jesus apart to speak with Him shows a wish to get at the bottom of the case. So far he was doing his duty, but then come the faults. These may easily be exaggerated, and we should remember that Pilate was the most ignorant, and therefore the least guilty, of all the persons mentioned in this passage. He had probably never heard the name of Jesus till that day, and saw nothing but an ordinary Jewish peasant, whom his countrymen, like the incomprehensible and troublesome people they were, wished, for some fantastic reason, to get killed.

But that dialogue with his Prisoner should have sunk deeper into his mind and heart. He was in long and close enough contact with Jesus to have seen glimpses of the light, which, if followed, would have led to clear recognition. His first sin was indifference, not unmingled with scorn, and it blinded him. Christ’s lofty and wonderful explanation of the nature of His kingdom and His mission to bear witness to the truth fell on entirely preoccupied ears, which were quick enough to catch the faintest whispers of treason, but dull towards ‘truth.’ When Jesus tried to reach his conscience by telling him that every lover of truth would listen to His voice, he only answered by the question, to which he waited not for an answer, ‘What is truth?’

That was not the question of a theoretical sceptic, but simply of a man who prided himself on being ‘practical,’ and left all talk about such abstractions to dreamers. The limitations of the Roman intellect and its characteristic over-estimate of deeds and contempt for pure thought, as well as the spirit of the governor, who would let men think what they chose, as long as they did not rebel, spoke in the question. Pilate is an instance of a man blinded to all lofty truth and to the beauty and solemn significance of Christ’s words, by his absorption in outward life. He thinks of Jesus as a harmless fanatic. Little did he know that the truth, which he thought moonshine, would shatter the Empire, which he thought the one solid reality. So called practical men commit the same mistake in every generation. ‘All flesh is as grass;. . . the word of the Lord endureth for ever.’

Further, Pilate sinned in prostituting his office by not setting free the prisoner when he was convinced of His innocence. ‘I find no fault in this man,’ should have been followed by immediate release. Every moment afterwards, in which He was kept captive, was the condemnation of the unjust judge. He was clearly anxious to keep his troublesome subjects in good humour, and thought that the judicial murder of one Jew was a small price to pay for popularity. Still he would have been glad to have escaped from what his official training had taught him to recoil from, and what some faint impression, made by his patient prisoner, gave him a strange dread of. So he grasps at the mention of Galilee, and tries to gain two good ends at once by handing Jesus over to Herod.

The relations between Antipas and him were necessarily delicate, like those between the English officials and the rajahs of native states in India; and there had been some friction, perhaps about ‘the Galileans, whose blood’ he ‘had mingled with their sacrifices.’ If there had been difficulties in connection with such a question of jurisdiction, the despatch of Jesus to Herod would be a graceful way of making the amende honorable, and would also shift an unpleasant decision on to Herod’s shoulders. Pilate would not be displeased to get rid of embarrassment, and to let Herod be the tool of the priests’ hate.

How awful the thought is of the contrast between Pilate’s conceptions of what he was doing and the reality! How blind to Christ’s beauty it is possible to be, when engrossed with selfish aims and outward things! How near a soul may be to the light, and yet turn away from it and plunge into darkness! How patient that silent prisoner, who lets Himself be bandied about from one tyrant to another, not because they had power, but because He loved the world, and would bear the sins of every one of us! How terrible the change when these unjust judges and He will change places, and Pilate and Herod stand at His judgment-seat!

III. We have the wretched, frivolous Herod.

This is the murderer of John Baptist-’that fox,’ a debauchee, a coward, and as cruel as sensuous. He had all the vices of his worthless race, and none of the energy of its founder. He is by far the most contemptible of the figures in this passage. Note his notion of, and his feeling to, Jesus. He thought of our Lord as of a magician or juggler, who might do some wonders to amuse the vacuous ennui of his sated nature. Time was when he had felt some twinge of conscience in listening to the Baptist, and had almost been lifted to nobleness by that strong arm. Time was, too, when he had trembled at hearing of Jesus, and taken Him for his victim risen from a bloody grave. But all that is past now. The sure way to stifle conscience is to neglect it. Do that long and resolutely enough, and it will cease to utter unheeded warnings. There will be a silence which may look like peace, but is really death. Herod’s gladness was more awful and really sad than Herod’s fear. Better to tremble at God’s word than to treat it as an occasion for mirth. He who hates a prophet because he knows him to be a prophet and himself to be a sinner, is not so hopeless as he who only expects to get sport out of the messenger of God.

Then note the Lord’s silence. Herod plies Jesus with a battery of questions, and gets no answer. If there had been a grain of earnestness in them all, Christ would have spoken. He never is silent to a true seeker after truth. But it is fitting that frivolous curiosity should be unanswered, and there is small likelihood of truth being found at the goal when there is nothing more noble than that temper at the starting-point. Christ’s silence is the penalty of previous neglect of Christ’s and His forerunner’s words. Jesus guides His conduct by His own precept, ‘Give not that which is holy unto the dogs’; and He knows, as we never can, who come into that terrible list of men to whom it would only add condemnation to speak of even His love. The eager hatred of the priests followed Jesus to Herod’s palace, but no judicial action is recorded as taking place there. Their fierce earnestness of hate seems out of place in the frivolous atmosphere. The mockery, in which Herod is not too dignified to join his soldiers, is more in keeping. But how ghastly it sounds to us, knowing whom they ignorantly mocked! Cruelty, inane laughter, hideous pleasure in an innocent man’s pain, disregard of law and justice-all these they were guilty of; and Herod, at any rate, knew enough of Jesus to give a yet darker colouring to his share in the coarse jest.

But how the loud laugh would have fallen silent if some flash had told who Jesus was! Is there any of our mirth, perhaps at some of His servants, or at some phase of His gospel, which would in like manner stick in our throats if His judgment throne blazed above us? Ridicule is a dangerous weapon. It does more harm to those who use it than to those against whom it is directed. Herod thought it an exquisite jest to dress up his prisoner as a king; but Herod has found out, by this time, whether he or the Nazarene was the sham monarch, and who is the real one. Christ was as silent under mockery as to His questioner. He bears all, and He takes account of all. He bears it because He is the world’s Sacrifice and Saviour. He takes account of it, and will one day recompense it, because He is the world’s King, and will be its Judge. Where shall we stand then-among the silenced mockers, or among the happy trusters in His Passion and subjects of His dominion?Luke 23:1-3. And the whole multitude of them — Namely, of the chief priests, scribes, and elders, arose and led him unto Pilate — See on Matthew 27:42; and Mark 15:1. And they began to accuse him, — Charging him with three capital crimes; perverting the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Cesar, and saying, that he himself was Christ, a king. They did not charge him with calling himself the Son of God, knowing very well that Pilate would not have concerned himself with such an accusation, which no way affected the state. All the three crimes, however, with which the Jews charge him, were only inferences of theirs, from his saying that he was the Son of God, Luke 22:70. They themselves drew imaginary consequences from his doctrine, which he had expressly denied; nay, and taught the contrary: and they who oppose his followers still use the same method. They lay to their charge things of which they are perfectly innocent, and on that ground persecute them with violence. The truth is, the opposition which these chief priests and others made to Christ, proceeded from mere malice and envy: and they pretended zeal for Cesar only to ingratiate themselves with Pilate, and to procure from him a condemnatory sentence against Jesus, without which they knew they could not accomplish their design of putting him to death. So far were they from being in reality zealous for, or even well affected toward Cesar, that a general uneasiness, of which Pilate was not ignorant, prevailed in the nation under the Roman yoke, and they wanted nothing but an opportunity to shake it off. And now they wished Pilate to believe, that this Jesus was active to foment that general discontent, of which, in reality, they themselves were the aiders and abetters. Christ had particularly taught, that they ought to give tribute to Cesar, though he knew many would be offended with him for it; and yet he is here falsely accused as forbidding to pay that tribute! As to making himself a rival with Cesar, it is certain that the chief reason why they rejected him, and would not own him to be the Messiah, was because he did not appear in worldly pomp and power, and assume the character of a temporal prince, nor do any thing against Cesar. He did indeed say that he was Christ, and if so, then a king; but not such a king as was ever likely to give disturbance to Cesar.23:1-5 Pilate well understood the difference between armed forces and our Lord's followers. But instead of being softened by Pilate's declaration of his innocence, and considering whether they were not bringing the guilt of innocent blood upon themselves, the Jews were the more angry. The Lord brings his designs to a glorious end, even by means of those who follow the devices of their own hearts. Thus all parties joined, so as to prove the innocence of Jesus, who was the atoning sacrifice for our sins.See the notes at Matthew 27:1-2. CHAPTER 23

Lu 23:1-5. Jesus before Pilate.

(See on [1733]Mr 15:1-5; and [1734]Joh 18:28-19:22.)Luke 23:1-7 Jesus is accused before Pilate, who sendeth him to Herod.

Luke 23:8-11 Herod, disappointed in his expectations, mocketh him,

and sendeth him back.

Luke 23:12 Herod and Pilate are made friends.

Luke 23:13-25 Pilate, willing to release Jesus, is prevailed on by

the clamours of the people to release Barabbas, and

give Jesus to be crucified.

Luke 23:26-31 Being led to the place of execution, Jesus biddeth

the women who lamented hint to weep rather for

themselves and their children.

Luke 23:32,33 He is crucified between two malefactors,

Luke 23:34 prayeth for his enemies,

Luke 23:35-38 is scoffed at,

Luke 23:39-43 reviled by one of the malefactors, but confessed by

the other, to whom he promises a place in paradise.

Luke 23:44,45 The unusual darkness, and rending the veil of the temple,

Luke 23:46 Christ crieth unto God, and expires.

Luke 23:47-49 The centurion’s confession of him.

Luke 23:50-54 Joseph of Arimathea begs his body and buries it.

Luke 23:55-56 The women prepare spices, against the end of the

sabbath.

Ver. 1-25. The history of our Saviour’s examination and trial before Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, is recorded by all four evangelists, nor can it be distinctly and perfectly understood without the comparing together of what they all say, where our reader will find all such passages opened as occur in any of the evangelists about it, and stand in need of explication. The high priests, and the chief priests, and the elders had before determined our Saviour guilty of death, for blasphemy. They stoned Stephen in that case, Acts 7:59, without carrying him before the Roman governor at all, that we read of in that history; how came it to pass that they did not so by our Saviour, but make a double work of it?

1. Some think that that was rather done in a tumult, though he was carried before the council, Acts 6:12, than in a regular judicial way; for conquerors in those times, though they sometimes allowed the conquered nations courts of judicature, wherein they judged in ordinary matters according to their own laws, and had, judges of their own nations, yet ordinarily reserved capital causes to the cognizance of governors constituted by them; and this seemeth confirmed by John 18:31, where when Pilate said, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law, we read that the Jews replied, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.

2. Others think that they had a power to put to death, but it was not lawful for them to put any to death upon the feast day: it was now the first day of unleavened bread. But the former seemeth more probable.

3. Or was it because they had sedition and treason to lay to his charge, which were crimes cognoscible only before the Roman governor? And possibly they were willing enough (knowing the reputation our Saviour had with the people) to lay the odium of his death upon Pilate, rather than take it upon themselves.

4. Whatever were the causes, it is most certain that it could be no otherwise, that all righteousness might be fulfilled.

Not a word of what our Saviour said could pass away. He had foretold, Matthew 20:18,19 Mr 10:33,34 Lu 18:32,33, that he should not only be betrayed to the chief priests and scribes, and by them be condemned to death, but that he should be delivered to the Gentiles, to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him; and indeed that way of putting to death by crucifying could only be done by the Gentiles, and that death he was to die. In the history of our Saviour’s examination before Pilate is observable...

1. How much more justice and equity our Saviour found from a heathen, than from the Jewish churchmen: the latter condemn him without any proof, after all attempts of subornation, and seek to destroy him right or wrong; Pilate useth all endeavours to deliver him and set him at liberty.

2. How desperate the hatred is that groweth upon the account of religion in the hearts of wicked men; they prefer a person guilty of the highest immoralities and debaucheries, viz. sedition and murder, before the most innocent person that ever lived, who differed only from them in some points of religion, and those chiefly relating to traditions and ceremonies; but indeed he interpreted the will of God more strictly than their lusts would suffer them to interpret it, and lived another kind of life than they lived. Strictness and holiness of doctrine and life is that which enrages the men of the world against the preachers and professors of the gospel.

See Poole on "Matthew 27:1", and following verses to Matthew 27:66, more fully.

And the whole multitude of them,.... Of the chief priests, Scribes, and elders; the whole of the sanhedrim, excepting Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea, having in their court condemned Christ to death:

arose; from the council chamber, where they sat in judgment upon him:

and led him unto Pilate, the Roman governor, and into the praetorium, or judgment hall, where causes were tried by him; hither they brought Jesus, having bound him as a prisoner and a malefactor, that their sentence might be confirmed by civil authority, and that he might be put to the death of the cross, which was a Roman punishment.

And {1} the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate.

(1) Christ, who is now ready to suffer for the rebellion which we raised in this world, is first of all pronounced guiltless, so that it might appear that he suffered not for his own sins (which were none) but for ours.