15:1
Jesus is now brought before Pilate, the Jewish religious leaders were unable to have Jesus killed themselves, they needed the Romans to do it for them. So there is an interesting comparison here. The Jews and the Gentile had to work together to reject Jesus. Now the Gentiles and Jews together can find eternal life by believing in Jesus. Jesus was bound and handed over to Pilate, the Roman governor. Just ponder on this for a moment. Men have bound the Son of God, and the Son of God, who could have called on myriads of angels, has let them, has submitted to this.
15:2-4
Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “You have said so” was Jesus reply. In many ways Jesus’ answers were not helpful. What He was doing was let the Jewish leaders, Pilate and others take the consequences of their decisions. The chief priests piled on a heap of other accusations. Jesus remained silent and Pilate was perplexed that Jesus did not answer any of their accusations.
15:5-7
The natural reaction when accused of something, especially when falsely accused, is to respond denying the accusations. Jesus’ lack of response is in line with Is 53:7. Pilate could not understand Jesus’ lack of response. It was the custom for the governor at this time of year to release one prisoner. The governor was not obliged to do so by law, but would often do this to help maintain peaceful relations with the people. Note that this implies that prisoners were not all normal criminals, but some were “political prisoners”. The primary aim of a governor was to maintain peace, the worst thing that could happen is that there were riots, as this would make the governor look very bad in the eyes of Rome.
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