John 18:28-40 “Only King Jesus”

1:12Two weeks ago, we saw Jesus led to the home of Caiaphas. Jesus was led first to the Garden of Gethsemane, where a band of officers and soldiers from the chief priests came to arrest him. And in the garden, Peter drew his sword, he cut off the ear of the high priest. Servant, but he was fighting the wrong battle with the wrong weapons. And then last week, we watch as Peter followed Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, where he denied knowing Jesus three times before the rooster even crowed once, just as Jesus foretold.

1:49Peter then left the courtyard and wept bitterly. And here in the Gospel of John, he leaves out some details that Matthew, Mark, and Luke record for us. For various reasons, John didn't think they were essential to his gospel story and what he was trying to show. But Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that when Jesus was led to the home of Caiaphas, he was examined by what is known as the Sanhedrin. That's the Jewish high council.

2:16And they were trying to get false testimony against Jesus, and so they called up a bunch of witnesses, but none of their testimonies agreed with each other. And so finally, the high priest, Caiaphas, is fed up, and he asks him directly, Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of the Blessed. And I want you to look at Jesus' response and the council's response to what Jesus says. Take a look on the screen. Jesus said, I am.

2:45And you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest tore his garments and said, What further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision? And they all condemned him as deserving death. And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, Prophesy. And the guards received him with blows.

3:15Not only do we see in Matthew, Mark, and Luke that Jesus once again takes the name of God, I am, for himself, but he also claims to be the Son of Man, which, contrary to many misunderstandings, is not him testifying to his humanity, but to his deity, because the Son of Man in Daniel 7 is the one who is equal to the ancient of days, who receives the same glory that he receives, and who will judge the nations on the last day. Without question, Jesus is claiming to be God.

3:51So the council and guards spit on him and they cover his head and they mock him, saying to prophesy and tell them which of them is hitting him because he can't see. And that brings us to our passage today, where the council leads him to Pilate, who had served as governor of Judea since AD 26. Now, what you need to know about Pilate is that he had a terrible relationship with the Jewish people. During his tenure, he raided the temple treasury in order to build a Roman aqueduct.

4:26And perhaps in response to the protests over such An offense to the Jewish people and the worship of their God, he killed several Jews from Galilee on their way to worship. So you must understand the Jews detested Pilate, and he detested them. That is what makes his interaction with Jesus that we're going to see today and next week so fascinating. He hates the Jewish people. He has no qualms about putting them to death, especially to protect the interests of Rome. And yet, only Pilate seems to understand that Jesus is not a threat either to the Jewish people or to Rome and its governance of those people.

5:14Whatever kind of king that Jesus may be, he is a different kind of king. And so Pilate is on the right track, strangely and ironically enough. Friends, Jesus is a different kind of king. And we're going to see that very clearly today. We're going to see that only King Jesus dies in the place of his guilty subjects. Let's pick up here in verse 28. You can see from the text there that the Jews arrive at Pilate's headquarters in the early morning hours, likely right after dawn.

5:50You remember that they illegally arrested and tried Jesus in the middle of the night, shuffling him around from Annas' house to Caiaphas' house. And John records this, they themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover. Now, why does John record that statement? He is shining a bright light on the hypocrisy of the Jewish religious leaders, who give attention to the finer points of the Mosaic law, like ritual cleanness, while ignoring the heart of the Mosaic law entirely. These are the very actions and attitudes that Jesus condemned all throughout his ministry.

6:39Take a look at these strong words in Matthew 23. He says to the Pharisees and the scribes, you blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

7:32Just think about those word pictures for a minute. Imagine going to the trouble to strain out the tiniest little bug and then swallowing a 1,000-pound camel. Imagine after your meal with your family or your roommates, you spend all kinds of time and energy polishing the outsides of the bowls and the plates, and you never touch the inside or the top where all of the food is stuck, and you put it back in the cabinet. Imagine spending days whitewashing the outside of a tomb, thinking that you've made the entire thing perfectly clean while inside there is a corpse rotting.

8:20That is what Jesus says as he describes these leaders as men who cared about the fine points of the law, the religious minutiae, but ignored the things that were truly important. They upheld the tiniest letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of the law completely. They overlooked their greed, their self-indulgence, their hypocrisy, their general lawlessness. I mean, these men have just conducted an illegal trial, breaking at least a dozen commands in the Mosaic law to condemn an innocent man.

8:59And they're worried. About walking into the home of a Gentile? That's their big concern? I don't want you to misunderstand me because that concern comes out of the Mosaic law. You would have been ceremonially unclean if you entered into the home of a Gentile. And I'm not saying that it's okay to break God's commands if they seem to us to be smaller than other commands. That's not the attitude that Jesus taught or modeled towards God's law. In fact, look what he says in Matthew chapter 5: Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

10:00Jesus was not saying that any commands of God are unimportant. He wasn't giving us permission to relax any of them. What he was saying is that appearing to keep God's commands on the outside is not enough. That is not enough. What did he say? Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, the most religious, the holiest people that anybody knew, unless your righteousness Exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. That's what Jesus says. To enter God's kingdom, you need a righteousness that surpasses the most religious people that you know in your life. Your mother, your grandmother, your dad, your roommate. It has to exceed that of the most righteous and religious person that you know. There has to be a righteousness that comes from keeping the spirit of the law and not just the letter. A righteousness that comes from a changed heart.

11:10The Jewish council didn't have that kind of righteousness. They were only concerned about how things looked on the outside. And friends, that may have been true of you up to this point in your life. You may have been primarily concerned with how you looked on the outside. That was certainly the case for me for the first 19 years of my life. I only cared about how I looked to others. So I went to great lengths to hide my sin.

11:41And that might be true of you too. You might go to great lengths to hide your sin from your parents, from your roommates, from your Christian friends. You might go to great lengths. But friends, on the last day, it will not matter one bit. If you look righteous on the outside, but you do not have the inner righteousness that comes through faith in Christ, it will not matter one bit if you fooled your parents, if you fooled your roommates, if you fooled your Christian spouse into thinking that you are a believer when you are not.

12:21It will not matter at all if everyone in the world thinks that you are the holiest person that they know, when in reality you love and you harbor secret sin. So understand that is what Jesus is saying. Look at Hebrews 4:13. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. The religious leaders should have known this because it was all over the law.

13:01But they either forgot or they willingly disregarded it. And they only cared about how they appeared on the outside. May that not be true of us. So Pilate goes outside and he asks what accusation that they're bringing against Jesus. That is a perfectly reasonable question for a man tasked with determining the guilt or innocence of an official prisoner in a court of law. But look how they respond in verse 30. If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you.

13:41It's a total non-answer, and it's a disrespectful one at that. This is a court of law. Pilate's job is to punish lawbreakers, not evildoers, whatever that might mean. So he tells them, take him yourselves and judge him by your own law. Pilate has no interest in getting involved in a quarrel between Jewish factions. But we can see here he has no choice because the Jews want to execute Jesus for blasphemy. But they don't have the authority to do that. Under Roman law, only the Roman government could execute criminals.

14:22And as he's done many times, John reminds us here that God is still in control, that everything is playing out according to his perfect plan, just like always. Look at verse 32. This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken, to show by what kind of death he was going to die. Now, if you remember all the way back months ago to Jesus' interaction with Nicodemus, he says this towards the end of their conversation. Look at John 3.

14:56And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, So must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. You see, during the Exodus, the Israelites became impatient and angry, and they spoke against God and his servant Moses. And as a disciplinary measure, God sent poisonous snakes among them, which sounds truly horrifying. And many people died from the snake bites. And so they confessed their sin, and they asked Moses to pray to God for them, that he would take away the serpents. And God gives Moses what seems like a really bizarre command. Look at on screen at Numbers 21.

15:48And the Lord said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. If you get bit by a poisonous snake, you have venom inside of you coursing through your veins. And in many cases, that poison, that venom that is now inside of you, it will eventually kill you.

16:27But God told Moses, in this case, To make this bronze serpent and put it on a pole, lift it up high. And if you wanted to be healed on the inside, if you wanted that venom in your veins to be healed, what you had to do was believe God's word and turn and look at the serpent on the pole. You had to have enough faith in God's word to do that simple thing. That's pretty weird, right?

17:01But it becomes a picture of the future work of Christ. Jesus told Nicodemus, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Friends, if you want to be saved, if you want to be forgiven of your sin, if you want to be healed on the inside from the sin that courses through your veins, that comes from your heart, if you want to be saved, there's only one cure. You've got to look to Christ, the one who was lifted up on the cross, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. That is the one and only cure, just as the one and only cure for being bit by the poisonous snakes and numbers was to look in faith at that bronze serpent that was lifted high on the pole.

18:01Now, I want you to remember, the Jews did not hang people. They did not crucify them. They stoned them. That was the Jewish method of execution. It's all over the law. And part of the reason that they stoned criminals instead of hanging them or crucifying them was because of what the law says about hanging a person. Look at Deuteronomy 21. And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day. For a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

18:53A hanged man is cursed by God. That's what the law says. And that is exactly why God had planned all along to have his son Jesus handed over to the Gentiles so that Jesus would not be stoned to death, but so he would be lifted up on a tree so that he would be cursed and bear the curse that we all bear because of our sin and rebellion against God. He was lifted up and cursed. In our place, that whoever looks to him and believes in him may have eternal life.

19:37Friends, all of us are the children of Adam and Eve. All of us are born under the curse. It is why we do the sinful things that we do to God and to each other. And so, like the religious leaders, we can try our best every single day to keep God's law. We can try our hardest to do the things that it commands us to do and try our hardest to avoid the things that it commands us not to do.

20:05But that strategy requires perfection. Look at Galatians 3:10. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Do you want to be declared righteous by God? All you have to do is keep every single one of his commands every single day perfectly. That's all. Or here's another way. Look at Galatians 3:13.

20:56Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. By becoming a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. So that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. Friends, we are under a curse because of the sin of our first parents and because of our own sin. Our only hope is Christ, who redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

21:38To be saved, we must look to him and put our faith in him. That is all that is required. It is repentance, turning from sin and turning to whatever you are hoping is going to save you, and looking to Christ, the one who is hung on the tree, bearing your curse for you in your place. That is what is required, repentance and faith. Have you done that? Or are you looking elsewhere for deliverance? Let's pick up in verse 33.

22:20So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered, Do you say this of 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? We must remember that Pilate has been serving as the governor of Judea since AD 26. It is at least AD 30 or 33 at this point. This is not his first rodeo.

23:02He knows that every single Passover, Messianic expectations reach a fever pitch, and there is always one or two guys around who are claiming to be the Messiah. So when the Jews hand him over, immediately Pilate knows something is not right. First of all, the Jews hate the Romans, and part of their expectation is that whoever the Messiah is, he is going to deliver them from Roman rule. So their position is going to be: even if this guy isn't the Messiah, at least he's going to give Rome a headache until they arrest him and execute him. They're not going to hand him over.

23:49Secondly, Jesus does not fit the stereotypical mold of the Messiah at all. He's not someone. Warmonger carrying weapons and whipping the crowd up into a frenzy. No, this man is a teacher and a healer who has caused Rome exactly zero problems in the three years that he has been ministering publicly. Pilate knows something is up. And so when he asks this question in verse 33, the word you is emphatic in the Greek. He's like, Are you the king of the Jews?

24:38He can't imagine that Jesus could possibly be the Messiah that they're looking for because they're looking for a revolutionary. And so for his part, Jesus wants to know why Pilate's asking that question. So he asks him, is this your own idea? Are you asking me? Or did somebody else say that about me and that's why you're asking? It's almost an invitation into personal conversation for Jesus. He's asking if Pilate is wondering whether he is the Messiah. But Pilate's not in a very talkative mood. He notes that his own people, including the religious leaders, are the ones who handed him over. So he asks, What have you done?

25:21What have you done? What did you do that your own people handed you over to me? This is not right. Verse 36. 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. So as Pilate is trying to make sense of the situation, Jesus is anticipating all of his questions. If Jesus is the king of the Jews, why did they hand him over?

26:01If he is their king, why isn't there fighting? Why aren't the servants fighting? What's going on here? And that's why Jesus says, if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. Notice he doesn't say, delivered over to you. Delivered over to the Jews. And remember, Peter tried that. When the officers of the temple and the Pharisees came to arrest Jesus, he attacked. He drew his sword and cut off the servant of the high priest. They cut off his ear. And he did not expect Jesus to be taken at all, certainly not taken without a fight. But right after Peter attacked, Jesus said, no more of this. Put your sword back in its sheath. He never commanded his disciples to attack. In fact, quite the opposite. He commanded them to stop. He healed the high priest's servant.

27:00That's because they were fighting the wrong battle with the wrong weapons. Friends, Jesus has a kingdom, and that makes him a king. So he answers Pilate's question indirectly when he says, My kingdom is not of this world. He's saying, I am a king. He's just saying that my kingdom is not an earthly kingdom, it doesn't operate in the ways that you are used to kingdoms operating. Look at verse 37. Then Pilate said to him, So you are a king?

27:39Jesus answered, You say that I am 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? Pilate continues to demonstrate that he's not up for a long conversation. He's just trying to discern the facts, make a judgment, and get on with the rest of his day. He doesn't want to have a big conversation about all these things. And so what he heard from Jesus is that Jesus is a king, a fact that Jesus confirms with the statement, you say that I am a king. In other words, you're right, I am. But Jesus wants to clear up any misunderstanding, and so he adds that the reason that he came into the world, his whole Purpose for being here on the earth is to bear witness to the truth. That is the very thing that John started this gospel with. Take a look on the screen at John 1:14.

28:43And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Look what Jesus said later in his ministry, John chapter 8. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Jesus came to earth full of grace and truth to bear witness about the truth. So anyone who hears his word and obeys it, anyone who obeys his teaching will know the truth, and the truth will set them free.

29:31So this statement, everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice, applies to all people. If you are seeking truth, if you love truth, if you desire the truth, you will listen to Jesus' voice. Because everyone who is of the truth listens to his voice. He came full of grace and truth to set us free by the truth. That statement applies to everyone. But I think you can see. In this passage, this is also a direct appeal to Pilate.

30:05Jesus, even as he is arrested, even as he is going to the cross in a matter of hours, is still appealing to the hearts of men. He is appealing to Pilate's conscience, to his natural, God-given sense of what is right and wrong. He says, Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. He's inviting him. Pilate, are you of the truth? Do you love truth? Are you seeking truth? If so, you will listen to my voice. He's inviting him in.

30:36But Pilate doesn't accept the invitation. In fact, as you can see here in the text, he barely considers it. He just dismisses it with the question: What is truth? A lot of readers imagine Pilate saying that with a sneer, as though he's mocking Jesus for believing in the idea of objective truth. And maybe he is. But I imagine that Pilate says it with more of a sigh. With the tired agnosticism of a man who has lived his entire life at the intersection of all these different cultures, all these politics, where everyone simply believes whatever is convenient.

31:30Whatever they think is true. It's not that he didn't believe in truth. It's that at this point, it seems that he had lost all hope that anybody could ever know what the truth really is. Friends, our own generation is marked by a tired agnosticism. We've been lied to by so many politicians, so many religious leaders, so many marketing agencies, that even if one believes that the truth is out there somewhere, most people have concluded that they are never going to know what the truth really is.

32:23But what makes our faith different, and I believe so potentially compelling to this generation, is that Christianity is not offering one more hypothesis about who God is and what we must do to get ourselves to Him. Christianity is offering the person of Jesus Christ, who said, I am the truth. He's not offering a competing Truth claim per se. He is offering himself the truth. Pilate lived at the intersection of all of these competing worldviews and beliefs, which may have led him to conclude the truth could never be known and to ask rhetorically, what is truth?

33:24But rhetorical questions are not designed to be answered. And so he doesn't give Jesus the opportunity to say to him, I who speak to you am He. Let's pick up in the second half of verse 38. After he had 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.

34:12This is the first of three times that Pilate is going to declare to the crowd, I find no guilt in him. In all four gospels, a Gentile ruler with a history of brutality. Brutally suppressing uprisings of the Jewish people pronounces Jesus, whom they are accusing of treason and insurrection, not guilty. And the gospel writers all include Pilate's verdict because it's so important to the original readers. Every Jewish reader of this gospel will be asking the question: How can a man hung on a tree possibly be the Messiah?

35:03Every Gentile reader of this gospel will be asking, How can a man executed as an enemy of the state possibly be the Son of God? So John records the government official overseeing the trial, a Gentile, a Roman, not a Jewish prophet, not a Jewish priest, not one of Jesus' disciples, but a Roman government official. He records him saying three times, I find no guilt in him. That is so significant. Pilate finds no basis to charge Jesus with a crime of any kind, and he wants to let Jesus go free.

35:47But at this point, he makes a terrible miscalculation. It was customary for him to release a prisoner at the Passover, and he seems to expect that the crowd will want Jesus, the king. Of the Jews. But you see, this is not the Palm Sunday crowd. These are not the thousands of people who experienced Jesus' teaching and healing, who came out and laid palm branches in front of Jesus as he entered into Jerusalem and said, Blessed be the name of the Lord, Hosanna.

36:24This is not that crowd. This is the religious leaders and their puppets. These are the insurrectionists, the people who hate Rome and probably regard Barabbas as a hero. This is a very different crowd than Palm Sunday, and that's why they cry out, not this man, but Barabbas. And we learn from the other gospels that Barabbas is in prison not just for robbery, but for insurrection and for murder, for leading a bloody uprising against the Roman government. Do you see the irony?

37:03Simply put, Barabbas is a man who deserves to die. By worldly and spiritual standards, Barabbas is a law breaker. He has broken the commandments of God and men, and he deserves justice, not mercy. Jesus, by contrast, has never broken the commandments of God or men. We learn from John's gospel. That he lived a sinless life in full obedience to the Mosaic law. And we learn here from Pilate, the Roman official, that he is not guilty of breaking any laws of the state.

37:45Jesus, the king of the Jews, most certainly does not deserve to die. But Jesus is no earthly king. And in his kingdom, the first are last, and the last are first. In his kingdom, the innocent king dies in the place of his guilty subjects. The name Barabbas is about the most generic name on planet Earth, it means son of the father or son of daddy. And that, of course, is God's providence because every one of us is daddy's son or daddy's daughter. Every one of us.

38:49And so, what we have here is the crowd demanding the release of Barabbas, Daddy's son, in exchange for Jesus, who is the true son of God. The Father, the living God. This is the very picture of the gospel itself. Look at Isaiah 53. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Look at 2 Corinthians 5. For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

39:45On this terrible day, the crowd screamed, not this man, but Barabbas. And the father said, not daddy's son, but my son. Friends, we have so many passages in the gospel that beautifully illustrate the truth of his son coming to suffer in our place. We have the ram that God provided in place of Isaac so that he would not be sacrificed. We have the Passover lamb. Showing that this spotless lamb would be offered, its blood shed in our place. We have the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 on whom the Lord lays all of our sins.

40:45But perhaps most clearly, we have these events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus, where Jesus, the innocent Son of the Father, takes the place of Barabbas, the guilty son of an unnamed earthly father. Barabbas represents every one of us. Whether we have sinned in big, obvious ways like he did, or whether we have sinned in hundreds, thousands of small, subtle ways that are unknown to everyone except ourselves and God. In His mercy, God sent His only begotten Son to be lifted up on a cross in our place, so that whoever looks to Him and believes in Him could be healed and forgiven, just like the Israelites looked to that bronze serpent lifted up on the pole in the desert.

41:53Throughout history, many human kings and queens have required great sacrifices from their people. All so that they could live in luxury for their own gain, but not Jesus. His kingdom is not of this world, and in his kingdom the first are last, and the last are first. What kind of king puts himself last so that his own subjects who have rebelled against him can be first? Only King Jesus. Only King Jesus dies in the place of his guilty subjects.

42:43Let's pray, Father, what can we say in response to so great a sacrifice? What prayer of thanks can we offer for sending your Son The true King to die in our place, those who have rebelled against you. Father, we are so thankful for the message of the gospel. There was no way for us to make up for our sin, for us to bear the curse, for us to reverse and pay back all the wrongs that we have done, the sins that we've committed against you and others.

44:20And so we thank you and we celebrate Jesus coming to bear the curse for us. We pray that our lives would show that we want to live in a manner worthy of such a beautiful gospel. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at New Life Baptist. CS dot net