John 19: The Roman People v. Jesus Christ

Where we last left our hero, Jesus Christ, He was brought before unjust and illegal trial with Annas the high priest. At that trial, Jesus was false declared guilty. With help from the Synoptic Gospels, Christians know that Jesus had to undergo 2 more Jewish trials: one with the high priest Caiaphas and the other with the Sanhedrin. Both of those trials were illegal and unjust, and both of those trials declared Jesus guilty. According to the Jews, Jesus is declared guilty of the blasphemy of calling himself the messiah, the king, and the Son of God. According to the Jewish Law, a man guilty of such crimes is to be executed. But there’s only one thing standing in the way. As we’ll learn later in the text, the Jewish leaders need the Roman leaders’ permission to execute someone. Now Jesus will go from the Jewish courts to Roman courts. Will the verdict be the same? Well, let’s find out.

As promised, I will start where we left in chapter 18, at verse 28. I want to set the scene a little with a reminder from the last chapter’s commentary. On what traditional Christians call “Good Friday,” Jesus underwent 6 trials: 3 were Jewish and 3 were Roman. There 3 Roman trials were, in order, with Pontius Pilate, with Herod, and with Pontius Pilate again. John skips over the trial with Herod for some reason (actually, to be fair, Luke is the only one to mention the trial with Herod). So this will all seem like one trial, but indeed it is 2, and I will point out the divider when I get to it. Perhaps John skipped Herod’s trial because he really wanted to emphasize Pilate’s trials, or maybe he even wanted to emphasize Pontius Pilate himself. Pontius Pilate really was an interesting person. If you are a high school student reading this, and your English teacher has assigned you to do a research paper, and he/she has given you the freedom to choose your topic, choose Pontius Pilate. Like I said, he’s a really interesting guy to learn about. To mix things up a bit, I am going to tell this portion of John focusing around Pontius Pilate. I’m going to do that by giving some introductory information about Pilate’s life before Jesus, then I’m going to go into the text for Christ’s trial under Pilate, and then I’m going to wrap up with the epilogue of Pilate’s life.

Very little is known about Pontius Pilate before he came to Judea, and what little we do know is just tradition and legend (and those traditions and legends probably aren’t the most reliable, either). For example, traditions and legends have stated Pontius Pilate was the illegitimate son of a Roman ambassador and a Scottish woman. Yes, that would mean Pilate would have been half Scottish. But this tradition is easily shot down, as the Romans weren’t anywhere in Britain until after Pilate’s life. More likely, Pontius Pilate was born and raised in central Italy or southern Italy because other people with the same surname have been found there. That would also make more sense because Pontius Pilate’s first job as governor was in that general area, although some traditions and legends claim he was first governor in Gaul, which would be located in France. Whether Pontius Pilate was first a governor in Italy, France, Scotland, Britain, or somewhere else, wherever that place was, Pontius Pilate screwed up. He didn’t screw up bad enough to be executed, imprisoned, or even lose his job, but he did screw up enough to get punished. His punishment was that he was to be governor over the worst part of the Roman Empire that no one wanted to be governor of: Israel/Palestine. I mean, you can’t blame the Roman governors for not wanting to be governor of Israel/Palestine. Think of how bad the Jews are. The Jews hate the non-Jewish people, the Gentiles, so much that they don’t want to even be in the presence of Gentiles. The Jews hated Jewish “half-breeds,” like the Samaritans (half-Jew, half-Assyrian) and Idumeans (half-Jew, half-Roman), that they would not touch, share, or even talk to them. Heck, the Jews even hated each other. Pharisees would hate Sadducees, and Sadducees would hate Pharisees. On top that, you have Essence Jews causing trouble out in the most remote and deserted places, and you have the Zealots assassinating Samaritans, Idumeans, Romans and other Gentiles. Most of the time, the Romans in Israel/Palestine served as the referee, making sure everyone could go about their daily lifestyles in peace without attacking anyone. It was a really hard to task to find ways to make everyone get along. So you can’t blame the Roman governors for wanting to avoid that location. So it almost seemed like perfect timing when Pontius Pilate screwed up and the Roman Senate shuffled the governors, both in 21 A.D. To punish Pontius Pilate, he was going to be the new governor of Israel/Palestine, effective 26 A.D.

So in 26 A.D., Pontius Pilate and his wife packed their bags and moved to the new region he would be governor over. Pontius Pilate settled and built his castle in the town of Caesarea (there are two Caesareas, this Caesarea is the one on the border of the Mediterranean Sea, thus nicknamed “Caesarea Maritime”). Before we move on to our story, I’m going to outline what’s going to happen between now and the trial with Jesus. Pontius Pilate was allowed to remain governor, but he was also reminded that in his new position, if he got 3 strikes, he would be out. Pontius Pilate’s mistake at his last governing position will not be his last. Before the he gets to the trial with Jesus, Pilate will rack up 2 strikes. I’m going to tell you about those strikes.

Sadly, the first strike was as soon as Pontius Pilate arrived in Israel/Palestine. Pontius Pilate had heard the stories about the Jews not getting along with the Gentiles, especially when it came to the Romans. When it came to the Romans, the Jew had a hard time submitting the authority of the Jews. So Pontius Pilate got the idea that best thing to do would be to establish his authority with an iron first and by putting his foot down. To do this, he brought in busts of former emperors and the present emperor, as well busts of the former regional governors and the regional governor, to decorate Galilee, Samaria and Judea, especially in Jerusalem. He also brought in gold shields that declared himself as the high and mighty governor of this late. Those too were put around Judea, especially in Jerusalem. All this was to remind the Jews that the Romans were in charge. The Jews, however, saw this as idolatry, and after being exiled to Babylon for graven images, the Jews learned their lesson and they would not put up with graven images in their land. The Jews responded in peaceful protest, by blocking doorways and laying in the road to create traffic holdup. Word of this got to nearby Roman governor in Syria, and the Syrian governor tattled to the emperor in Rome. The emperor sent word to Pontius Pilate along of the lines of, “The Jews protested in peace, so you should reward peace with peace, and peacefully remove the busts and the shields.” A humbled Pontius Pilate submitted to his emperor’s suggestion and removed all the busts and the shields, but it still went on his record as a bad move. Strike 1.

Further down the road as his career of governor, Pontius Pilate wanted to build an aqueduct that would carry water from Caesarea to Jerusalem. The only problem is Pontius Pilate ran out of money from his Roman governor funds. So Pilate went to the Jewish leaders for funds, mainly to the high priest for money from the temple funds. The Jews didn’t really want the aqueduct in the first place, so of course they said no. But Pilate needed that money, and he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. So Pilate dressed up Roman soldiers to look like the Jewish temple guards. He had them hide their clubs under their clothes. Then, during a festival, when the temple was busy and full of people, the disguised temple guards would enter the temple and steal from the temple treasury. The plan seemed like it would work, but of course someone noticed. Now historians, both ancient ones and modern ones, disagree agree about who struck first, but it resulted in a massacre of Jews and Roman soldiers alike. Once they found out the thieves were Roman soldiers in disguise, it was only a matter of time until it was traced back to Pontius Pilate. This did not go over well with Jews and Romans alike. Heck, this didn’t even go over well with Herod. King Herod hated Pontius Pilate for killing “his subjects” like that. This event was probably what made Herod and Pilate enemies, as mentioned in Luke 23:12 (this event is also possible the event described in Luke 13:1). Strike 2.

Now we are all caught up to the Biblical story in John chapters 18 and 19. Pontius Pilate’s back story wasn’t too long, so I hope you’re still with me. But I think it was totally worth going through it because it really does paint the setting about what’s going to happen. Pontius Pilate has 2 strikes against his name. He knows he got in trouble before by making one mistake in his previous governor job, so he definitely knows he’ll get in big trouble for making 3 big mistakes in his new governor job. He really doesn’t want that 3rd strike. But Pilate is in a tough position. He’s between a rock and hard place. He’s got to please his higher Roman authorities, like the emperor, but he also has to please the Jews. So Pilate is on edge. Keep that in mind as we go into the text. One more thing would be good to note. Remember, this is the Passover season. Jews from all over the Roman Empire are coming into Jerusalem. With the increasing traffic of people, the Romans are expecting things to go down. So just in case, Pontius Pilate and his wife are residing in Jerusalem for the week to make sure everything goes smoothly and be there in case an emergency breaks out. It was that coincidence which would lead the Jewish leaders to bring Jesus before Pilate.

Ok, let’s start at John 18:28. It’s early morning, and this slowly forming mob comes from the Sanhedrin all the way to Pilate’s temporary residence. They’re getting closer to the door when all of a sudden, they stop! They don’t go any further than under the colonnade cover of the house. Why? Jewish customs of the day forbid any Jew from entering the house of Gentile. If they did, they would become unclean. It was a sin to be unclean during the Passover, especially when it came to eating the Passover meal. Only clean Jews could eat the Passover feast. So the Jews waited patiently, maybe yelling a couple times, for Pontius Pilate to come out. How ironic that the Jews, who were planning to murder an innocent man, were worried about cleanliness. It would not be going into a Gentiles house that would make them unclean, but rather, killing an innocent man, that would make them unclean.

Eventually they get Pilate’s attention and Pilate comes out to meet them. Seeing a man bound up, he assumes that the bound-up man is a criminal. So Pilate asks for the charges the Jews brought up against Jesus. Once again, we’re going to have to look towards Luke for the answer, for the thorough Luke has left no detail out. In Luke’s account, the charges the Jews bring against Jesus is that Jesus claims to be the Christ and a king, and that Jesus refuses to pay taxes to Caesar. Obviously, the Jews are trying to use Roman Law to try to convince Pontius Pilate to execute Jesus. But I have to say, I like what the Jews say in John (probably before they give the charges in Luke). In John 18:30, the Jews simply say something along the lines of, “Obviously he’s a criminal. Why else would he bring him to you?” Truth is, the Jews hated Pontius Pilate. They would avoid him at all costs, and they would only talk to if it was absolutely necessary. If the Jews were talking to Pilate, now they needed him. I think that they said this before giving the charges, hoping that tired Pontius Pilate would not be in the mood to argue with them, and thus he would just give them whatever they wanted, even an execution sentence.

Although Pontius Pilate just woke up, he’s a smart man. I bet he took one good look at Jesus and he immediately recognized who he was. Remember Pontius Pilate has been in Jerusalem at least this whole week, and maybe even the week before. So it’s very possible Pilate heard about, or even saw, the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday. Perhaps Pilate was thinking to himself, “Hey, isn’t this that guy Jesus, whom they gave a parade on Sunday? Why do they have him all bound up now? I thought they liked him. Is this a trap? Are they trying to trick me into my third strike, so they can get me out of here? Or maybe they’re using reverse psychology and they are using this to cover up a real insurrection! Or maybe they’re using reverse reverse psychology…” By now, if Pilate is thinking such, he’s getting a headache from his head spinning. Maybe he concluded, “Alright, as long as I do the right Roman thing, it doesn’t matter how the Jews respond, the Roman leaders will respect me as a Roman leader, and I won’t get in trouble. So the first step might be to take this case off my hands. Now what can I say or do to get this case off my hands…” Then it hits him. “Aha! They mentioned the Christ. That’s part of the Jews religion, so it has no part with me!”

Pontius Pilate, recognizing that this might be over a religious matter, tells the Jews to judge him by their own law. “There’s only one problem with that,” the Jews say to Pilate. “we have declared him guilty and sentence him to death, but we cannot put anyone to death without your permission.” Pilate has got to be thinking to himself, “Drat. They got a point.” Roman law made it illegal for foreign people to carry out their own executions. The punishment for doing so is execution themselves. The whole reason the Jews are going to Pilate was for the execution permission because only Pilate could give the order to execute. But here’s the tricky part. For Pilate to sentence to death, Pilate also has to declare the defendant guilty. If Pilate declares the defendant not guilty, his verdict vetoes the guilty verdict from the Jews, so much that any punishment towards the defendant is now illegal. So the Jews are now all in, all or nothing.

So Pontius Pilate retreats inside and calls for Jesus to come up. Jesus is sent up. I can imagine Pilate sitting down and saying, “Alright, we’re in private now, I’m not going to tell them what you said. I know how legalistic your leaders can get, and I know how crazy they can get. You just tell me your side of the story, and I bet we can get this all straighten out.” But Jesus says nothing. So Pilate says, “Alright, let’s start with the charges. They said that you said you were their Christ and their king. Is that true? Are you their king? Are you the king of the Jews?” I really like the answer Jesus gives in John 18:34. It’s like Jesus is saying to Pilate, “Did they put that idea into your head, or do you really believe it?” Statements like this, as well as similar statements throughout John’s Gospels and the other Gospels, really make me wonder if Jesus was calling Pontius Pilate to faith. Pilate’s response “Am I Jew?” is a rhetorical question meaning, “I’m not a Jew. I don’t know what makes you a ‘king’ in their religion. I really don’t care. I’m just here to make civil court decisions.” Now Pilate’s next statement has a Greek wordplay in it you won’t recognize unless you can read Greek. Pilate says that Jesus was “handed over.” The Greek word for “handed over” is paredōkan. The Greek word for “betrayed” is paradidous. This is the term used with Judas Iscariot. Notice how closely related they are spelled and sounded out. Some lexical scholars even believe they are coming from the same etymology. Pilate is almost saying, “If you are the king of the Jews, your subjects betrayed you.” Even to Pilate, this is a little bit fishy. Why would the Jews betray their king? Once again, Pilate asks, “What have you done?” and once again, Pilate means, “Tell me your side of the story, and perhaps we can works things out.”

Pay close attention to Christ’s response in John 18:36. You can get a lot out of it. Jesus starts off with two important words: “My kingdom.” The Greek word is basilia, which has been translated both “kingdom” and “reign,” and there’s good theology behind that. In our modern-day minds, “kingdom” is a location, a region, a plot of land, a place. That’s not fully the understanding of ancient people who actually lived in a kingdom. The ancient and medieval understanding of a “kingdom” is the people who the king reigns over. If those people owned land, then the king would be considered the king of the land. He reigns over the people, so he reigns over their land. Jesus was not a king out to take land. Jesus was a king in the hearts of those who believed in Him and followed Him. Christ’s kingdom consisted of his believers who followed His teachings. They were not ones who would form a guerilla army to overthrow the Roman government in a revolution. So Pilate has no need to worry. Perhaps, Jesus is again protecting his disciples. Since the disciples of Jesus would not cause an insurrection, there was no need for the Roman government to go after them.

Unfortunately, Pilate also seems to have a misguided definition of “kingdom.” From “kingdom,” he pulls out the idea that the leader of a kingdom is a “king.” So Pilate exclaims, “Aha! You are a king!” Well, that’s what the NIV says. Most other translations translate as a re-affirmative question, such as “So you are a king?” (as in “So they were right about your claims of being a king?”) Still, the sentence is to be taken a rhetorical understanding positively affirming Jesus to be a king. Since Pilate seems a little surer, Jesus is willing to answer his question fully and truthfully. Indeed Jesus was the king, and he was king in so many ways! First, God is the king of the universe, and Jesus is God, so Jesus is the king of the universe. Second, Jesus is the king because he a descendant of David. If Judah did not mess up the Mosaic Covenant and the Davidic Covenant, then Israel would be a monocratic kingdom, and the king would be, in accordance to the Davidic line, Jesus! Third (and the third one hits home to what Jesus was saying in the rest of the verse), Jesus was the king in the lives of everyone who believed in Jesus and believed in His teaching, the truth. In three ways, Jesus is the king!

Another priceless line from Pilate, Pontius Pilate utters a line that would make any postmodernist proud: “What is truth?” I can almost hear Pilate literally uttering that line under his breath, “Yeah, but what is truth?” Many different interpretations have gone out with this line. Some have said Pilate was inquiring about “The Truth” that Jesus spoke of, while others say Pilate is demanding a clear-cut, “yes” or “no,” answer to the question, “Are you the king of the Jews?” But I think the best interpretation is the postmodern one, that Pilate is being sarcastically skeptical towards epistemology (the philosophical search for truth). Here the Jews were telling Pilate that Jesus was obviously guilty of falsely calling himself a king and Christ, and he needs to be executed. Jesus is claiming that he’s running a non-violent kingdom of some far away place. In Pilate’s mind (as we’ll talk about soon), Jesus is somewhere between a liar and a lunatic, but definitely not guilty of treason or an insurrection. So Pilate wonders, “Which one of us is right? How can all 3 of us be right? Is there really truth if all 3 of us claim that our answer is the truth?” What Pilate doesn’t know, and what Christians do know, is the source of truth comes from Jesus. After all, it was only a few chapters ago Jesus declared “I am the truth.” Truth only comes from Jesus. All who speak the way of Jesus speak truth, but those who speak against the teachings of Jesus speak against truth.

Now we’re going to take a pause right in the middle of the verse to ponder what Pontius is pondering. The Jews have brought forth a man who they say claims that He is the Christ and the King of the Jews. They even try to throw in that He won’t pay taxes to Caesar in order to prove he’s against the Roman government. When Pilate questions him one-on-one, Jesus talks about a kingdom, but he talks about one that’s far away. He doesn’t have a history of violence; in fact, he sounds rather peaceful. All he wants to do is teach the truth. Things aren’t adding up, in comparison to the other people who tried to lead rebellions. They all formed a large army. Jesus only had twelve disciples, and none of them are in sight (well, two might be nearby, but the one is keeping a safe distance and the other one is denying he even knew Jesus). All the other insurrectionists were loud and putting up a fight. Jesus stands there quiet and relaxed all bound up. All the other insurrectionists had to be imprisoned or executed because they were violent threats to the local people and overall government. Jesus seems to be no threat whatsoever. I wondered if Pilate thought that Jesus either was saying He had a kingdom when Jesus knew he didn’t, or Jesus seriously believed He had a kingdom, when (in Pilate’s eyes), he didn’t. So possibly Pilate is now concluding that Jesus is either a liar or a lunatic, but either way, he’s not guilty. He’s innocent. Pilate can find no basis to charge Jesus. So in Pilate’s conscience, Pilate cannot pass an execution on Jesus. But it’s not that easy. The Jews are screaming bloody murder for this guy’s body on a cross. So Pontius must ponder how to set Jesus free, and yet appease the Jews at the same time.

So Pontius Pilate’s first move is to completely take the decision off his hands and put it on someone else’s hands, that someone else being Herod. Between verses 38 and 39 of John 18 is when Jesus is sent to trial with Herod. I’m not going into detail with Herod’s trial of Jesus because that’s only in Luke, and this is a study of John, not Luke. But I will discuss why Jesus goes off to Herod. It seems like Pontius Pilate is forced to make a decision, when all of a sudden it hits him, “Wait! Herod’s in town!” Herod was an Idumean, a half-Roman and half-Jew. He was in Jerusalem for Passover because he was a Roman and a Jew. Since he was a Jew, he was required to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. Since was a Roman, employed the Romans, he too was in Jerusalem for crowd control. Herod’s main control was over Galilee. Since Jesus was a Galilean, it made sense that Jesus should be sentenced by his king, who is both under Jewish law and Roman law. Under Jewish Law, Herod could pronounce someone guilty over religious matters. Under Roman Law, Herod could execute people. It made more sense for Herod to sentence Jesus than Pilate. The Jews go along with this, but Herod does not. Herod passes Jesus back to Pontius Pilate, passing no judgment whatsoever. It’s up to Pontius Pilate again. Pilate’s first attempt to set Jesus free failed and appeased the Romans.

If anything, sending Jesus to Herod at least stalled Pontius Pilate for time. Perhaps while Jews and the Jewish mob were at Herod’s Palace, Pilate was thinking up a Plan B in case it came back to him. He may have thought, “Alright, this seems to be that Sanhedrin’s idea to execute him. But from what I remembered last Sunday, the lower class and social outcast Jews seem to love him. So if maybe there’s some way I can use that majority of the Jews, I can get Jesus out of this mess.” By the time the unruly Jewish mob gets back to Pontius Pilate, Pilate has already devised a plan. “Here’s what I’ll do,” Pontius Pilate announces to the crowd. “I will declare Jesus guilty and put him under arrest, but I won’t sentence him just yet. I just remembered that this is your Passover. In accordance with the treaty we made with you, I have agreed to follow your custom to pardon a prisoner. Would you like me to pardon Jesus, or pardon Barabbas? How about we pardon Jesus, and say we broke even?”

Now there’s got to be a little discussion here on Barabbas. First of all, his name alone is interesting. Broken down, it’s “Bar-“ and “abbas.” Bar- is the prefix meaning “Son of.” Abbas means Father. His name literally means “Son of the father,” but in the Jewish name’s context, it could very well mean, “Son of The Father” or “Son of God.” To make things even more interesting, some manuscripts give Barabbas as the last name, and the full name, “Jesus Barabbas.” So here you have 2 men named Jesus, and Pilate asks, “Which Jesus does you want?” Pilate has two men called “The Son of God” and Pilate asks, “Which Son of God do you want?” While the two men had very similar names, they couldn’t be further apart in personality. Barabbas was anti-Jesus, if you will. Barabbas had quite the rap sheet. The charges he was declared guilty of was theft, murder, treason, rebellion and insurrection. Barabbas was know to be a member of Zealots and a member of a Jewish resistance movement established to overthrow the Roman government at whatever costs possible. Barabbas was a violent man, willing to hurt or kill any Roman, or even any Jew who disagreed with him or got in his way to domination. Matthew even kind of hints that he’s been in and out of prison a couple times!

I can imagine Pontius Pilate smirking and saying to himself, “I got them now! This is so perfect! I declared Jesus guilty, so that will make the Jewish leaders happy. All the other Jews, like the lower class Jews won’t want their beloved Jesus killed, so they will speak out against their leaders. I’ll pardon him, and that will make all the other Jews happy. It will make me happy too. Not only can I set free an innocent man with a clean conscience, I don’t have to worry about pardoning a dangerous and violent man, but I can put him to death. Come on now, you Jews, pick the obviously right one.” It’s true, Jesus was the obviously right one to set free, in the Roman mindset. In the Roman mindset, Barabbas was a threat to society, but Jesus was not. So in the Roman mindset, it made sense to release Jesus and to execute Barabbas.

It isn’t as obvious in the Jewish mindset. They wanted Barabbas! Why would the Jews want a violent and dangerous man free but would one a wise teacher and a healer killed? You really have to think about it in a Jewish mindset, or in the terms Jews vs. Romans. Yes, Barabbas was harmful and dangerous, but he was also a hero of the resistance to the Roman government and a hero to those who hated the Romans. A vote for Barabbas was a vote against the Roman government. On top of that, I think some of the Jews saw through Pilate’s smokescreen and they realized that Pilate wanted them to pick Jesus. So picking Jesus would be siding with Pilate, which would be like place a pro-Rome vote. On that same note, remember in John 9:23 and John 12:42, the reader learns that anyone who sided with Jesus was excommunicated from the Jews. The Jewish people might have worried that if they chose Jesus, the Jewish leaders would pick them out and shun them. Fearing the shun, the Jewish people followed the lead of the Sanhedrin. One more thing may be a possibility to note, and it all centers around disappointment. The Jerusalem people gave Jesus the Palm Sunday parade because they might have hoped Jesus would start a revolution that week. When Jesus did not start any kind of revolt, the people were disappointed and no longer willing to follow Jesus. Pontius Pilate’s second attempt truly failed, or should I say, backfired. Not only was Pilate unable to set free the innocent Jesus, but he also had to let loose a dangerous and violent Barabbas. For all Pilate knew, Barabbas would start another revolt and end up back in jail by the end of year.

Now let’s enter John 19. Pilate gets that the Jewish crowd is crying out for blood. So his third attempt is to compromise by just giving a little blood. Pilate finds no charge against Jesus, but he’ll punish him with a lighter punishment of a flogging. When I say “lighter punishment,” do not take that lightly. A Roman flogging wasn’t an easy thing to bear. The Romans had perfected flogging. It wasn’t just a whip. It was a whip that had multiple cords, and each cord had a spiked ball-bearing (or pieces of bone) at the end. Not only did this kind of whip hurt when the leather lashed out across your back, but it would literally tear the skin, and sometimes even the muscle off of your back. By the time the flogging was done, the flogged person’s back looked like raw ground beef. In some cases, some people would die from flogging alone. Flogging was nasty, so nasty that some historians claim that Roman citizens could not be flogged. Of course, since the governor did not observe the flogging, sometimes Romans soldiers would take the time to do whatever they pleased. They would mock or torment the victim. They held none of that back for Jesus. Since Jesus was charged as a king, the soldiers mocked Jesus by pretending He was a king, even giving him a purple robe, a crown of thorns (remember than crowns in ancient Rome were laurel reefs around the head), and even mockingly exclaiming, “Hail, king of the Jews!” Matthew and Mark add that he was also spit on during this time.

After Jesus is flogged, Pontius Pilate brings out Jesus to present him as punished to the Jewish people, hoping this is enough for the Jews. When Jesus comes out, Pontius Pilate says in the NIV, “Here is the man!” but I like better the other translations that say, “Behold the man!” If I were to paraphrase this into longer sentences, Pilate is saying to the Jewish crowd, “See, I punished him. He seems to have learned his lesson. Is this good enough for you?” Apparently, it’s not, for as soon as Jesus sets foot out, the Jewish leads cry out for Jesus to be crucified. This was a sad day for the Jews. The Jews hated crucifixion and they believed no man deserves it. Yet here they are, crying out for Jesus to be crucified. Pilate insists for a third time the he cannot find a basis for accusation. In Pilate’s mind, Jesus is still innocent. Pilate even cries out, “You crucify him!” The Jews reply, “Pilate, you know it doesn’t work that way, we need you to declare him guilty and pass the sentence of crucifixion. Our law has clearly told us to execute anyone who claims to be the Son of God. We did our part by holding the trial and giving him a guilty verdict. Now you do your job and pass the sentence of cricufixion”

The next verse, John 19:8, describes Pontius Pilate as afraid. Most scholars believe the fear is over the loud, blood-thirsty Jewish crowd. Pontius Pilate is beginning to fear if they don’t get their way, a revolt will break out in Jerusalem. If they succeed, Pontius Pilate will be kicked out of the land, or even executed! Even in the Romans won and subdued the Jewish crowd, Pilate would have to answer back to Rome why a riot broke out in the city where he was residing. If that was the case, the obvious answer would seem to be to give into the Jews’ demands, but that’s easier than it sounds. First of all, it would make it look like a Roman government was giving into the conquered people. Second, the Roman governor was expected to hold to the Roman law. If Pilate could not find a reason to declare Jesus guilty under Roman law, but passed an execution away, it would seem like Pilate is not following Roman law, but rather Jewish law. That doesn’t look good to the emperor, either. These ideas are the view most schlolars hold on, but there’s a minor view that some scholars take up, too. In Roman mythology, there are many myths about Roman gods disguising themselves as men to test and judge Romans. It’s very possible Pilate might thought this about Jesus. He might have heard Jesus, the followers of Jesus, or even the enemies of Jesus, call Jesus the “Son of God.” Perhaps Pilate heard of some of the miracles Jesus performed. Or maybe Pilate thought Jesus was a god because He was innocent, too innocent. Either way, Pilate might be serious thinking Jesus is one of these gods, doing of one of these tests. This minority view helps make sense of the question in verse 9: “Where do you come from?” It might Pilate trying to get Jesus to reveal He is a god. But going back to the majority view, Pilate is saying this to just uncover something, anything, that might give Pilate some proof that the Jews can’t argue with to declare him innocent. Yet Jesus won’t give it to Pilate. Jesus remains silent. Most scholars believe this is because Jesus already answered that question with His answers in chapter 18, so Jesus sees no reason to repeat them. I would like the throw in also that maybe it’s because Jesus had the Father’s will in mind and didn’t want to defend himself, but rather go to the cross to pay for the sins of mankind. At the least, it fulfilled the prophecy found in Isaiah 53:7.

By John 19:10, Pontius Pilate is irritated with Jesus. Perhaps some of the irritation was due to his fear. Here Pontius Pilate is doing everything is his power to set Jesus free, yet Jesus doesn’t seem to be helping. Pilate asks, “Don’t you get it? I am controlling the balance to whether you go free or you die on the cross.” Jesus speaks boldly to Pilate, reminding him the only reason Pilate is the governor of Israel/Palestine is because God authorized from above. Apart from God’s authorization, it would not happen. This goes wonderfully in line with Romans 13:1. All authorities have been established by God, whether Jewish or Gentile, Christian or non-Christian. This includes Pontius Pilate. If there is any connection between the Roman trials in John 18-19, and the Jewish trials in John 18, it all comes back to the last thing Jesus said to Pontius Pilate. Both authorities were put into place by God, yet both authorities refused to recognize when God’s Son was placed before them in court. For if they did recognize the Son of God on trial, they would declare Him innocent. But they did not recognize the Son of God, so they declared him guilty, and therefore, they are guilty. There’s been debate about who the one guilty of the greater sin, but I believe in this context, it’s the Jewish people, because they have the Law and the History to figure out who the Messiah is, and yet they still missed it. Pontius Pilate does not have this history or the text to figure out the Messiah, so he is not as guilty, but still guilty.

John 19:11 starts out by saying, “From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free…” but if you ask me, it seems like Pilate had always been trying to set Jesus free. I think the phrase in verse 11 could be re-worded, “Pilate tried other ways to convince the Jews to let Jesus go” or “Pilate tried harder to free Jesus.” By this time, the Jews actually try to help Pontius Pilate. Pilate claimed there was no Roman law to convict Jesus by, so the Jews were going to help Pilate find a Roman law. The Jews pretty much say Pilate, “When we said Jesus called himself ‘king,’ we really meant Jesus called himself ‘Caesar.’ Isn’t another man calling himself the emperor of Rome treason? Then letting him go would be committing treason as well. You wouldn’t want to commit treason, would you?” Well, that helped Pilate greatly. By no means did Pilate want Jews reporting back to the emperor of Rome that he let a man who claimed to be Caesar go. That would definitely be strike 3. He could bend what the Jews were saying to fit that as a charge for treason. It would be following both the Roman law and the Jewish law. Therefore, the decision would please Jews and Roman alike. The only thing in Pilate’s way was a gut feeling and a guilty conscience. But Pilate had to act fast, for if he didn’t he’d either be facing a Jewish riot or a bad report sent to Rome.

Pontius Pilate takes his seat on the Stone Pavement, a judgment seat in a public square where judges made their rulings, verdicts and sentences public for all to witness. Since it was public and in the presence of witnesses, all rulings, verdicts and sentences made on the Stone Pavement judgment seat were official. Pilate one more time states the charges, “Here is your king. Do you want him crucified?” But the Jews shout “Take him away! Crucify him! We have no king but Caesar!” Another sad moment in Jewish history. I don’t believe John, nor the apostles in Acts, were being anti-Semitic, but after that last statement, you can’t blame them for sounding anti-Semitic. They blatantly reject the Messiah they’ve been waiting so long for. They blatantly reject a true Jewish king. Worse part, they blatantly reject God as their God and their king. If there’s anything worse than that, they rejected their Messiah, King and God, not for another Jew, but for a Gentile, one of the same nationality and ethnicity of the person they refused to even step a foot in his house.

If there’s one thing I noticed between John 18 and John 19, it’s another role reversal. This time it’s not between Jesus and the Jewish leaders, but it’s between the Jews and the Romans with their corresponding laws. Look back at the conversations between the Jews and the Romans over their laws. At first the Jews say Jesus is guilty by the Jewish Law, while the Roman governor says Jesus is innocent over the Roman law. But by the end of the conversation, the Roman governor is trying to appease to the Jews with the Jewish law, and the Jews are trying to appease with the Romans with the Roman law. Yet one thing remains true over all this. The true authority is not the Jewish authority, nor is it the Roman authority. The true authority is from God. God has handed down a little authority to the Jews and a little authority to the Gentiles, but he has given it all to Jesus.

So Pilate, seeing there is no way to talk the Jews out of this, and afraid that a Jewish riot might happen, which would result in his strike, passed a sentence of crucifixion. He might have tried to justify it, convincing himself he did the right thing by giving the Jews what they wanted and by protecting the Roman government for a Caesar wannabe. Yet I bet his conscience was still bothering him. He knew Jesus did nothing wrong. He knew Jesus wasn’t a threat to anyone’s safety. He knew that the Jews only wanted Jesus dead because they were jealous. On top of his own conscience, poor Pilate had his wife even telling him it was wrong (see Matthew 27:19). Yet Pilate made a decision for his own safety and his own career.

This isn’t the end of our story with Pontius Pilate. He’s got one more job to do. Crucifixions were done out in the open, not only to teach the criminals a lesson, but also to teach the people a lesson. The lesson was simple: Don’t commit crimes against the Roman Empire or you will die a painful death. To help fully understand the lesson, the judge would make a sign or a notice to nail on top of the cross describing the crime the person committed. So the sign might say, “Thief,” “Robber,” “Murder,” “Started a riot,” “Started in insurrection,” etc. Furthermore, it was written in the top 3 lingua francas (most spoken language) of the day so everyone, Roman citizen and foreigner, could understand the message. You can tell when Pilate wrote the sign, he was still upset at the Jews for killing an innocent man out of their jealousy. So he subtly messes with the Jews. He writes on the sign (combining all 4 Gospel accounts), “This is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” Now the Jews are upset about this. They say the sign should read, “This man claimed to be the King of the Jews.” Do you see the difference? The Jews are still insisting the crime is that Jesus blasphemed by calling himself God, Christ and the king. That’s the crime he’s being punished for. But Pilate sees right through their smokescreen. He knows they killed him out a jealous. Pilate is sending across a clear message, “This is how the Jews treat their king.” When the chief priests demand the sign to be changed, Pilate says, “Oops! Too late! It’s already up there. No turning back now.”

Now we’re going to take break from Pilate because there a few things I want to point out in the rest of this chapter. But for the sake of time and space, I’m not going to hit every point. The points I will hit are the ones unique to John’s Gospel account.

John’s Gospel names 4 women at the cross on Golgotha. John says these 4 women were Mary the mother of Jesus, her sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. This is a lot of Marys. It will be ironic that the women, the last people to see Jesus alive, will be the first people to see Jesus come back to life. How does John know these women are there? Apparently, John was there himself. It makes sense that only in John’s Gospel that John would mentioned being there. No other writer would no this because they were not there. Matthew wasn’t there, he fled. Same with Peter, one of the main sources of Mark. John will later reaffirm he was there to the end, in John 19:35,36. Jesus sees both his mother and his first cousin, his beloved disciple John. Jesus instructs John to take care of his mother for him until she dies. This was a very noble thing for Jesus to do. In the Jewish customs of the 1st century, it was the oldest son’s responsibility to take in the mother when she was elderly and widowed. Since Jesus knew he wasn’t going to be around, he asked his closest friend and first cousin to do the task.

Ok, maybe this next part isn’t unique to John, but I always like to mention it. Jesus asks for a drink, only to refuse it. Why would Jesus ask for a drink to only refuse it? John’s Gospel is the only Gospel that records Jesus asking for it. Some has suggested it’s a fulfillment of prophecy, such as Psalm 69:21. Others say it was for Jesus to reveal his humanity by displaying a human need. Yet others have even presented it as a paradox, that the source of spiritual Living Water needed physical water. They give Jesus wine vinegar, a sour wine, raised up on the stalk of the hyssop plant, possibly putting some hyssop in the wine vinegar. If this wine vinegar got into any of Christ’s wounds, it would burn painfully, but if Jesus digested it, it would act as a slight painkiller. The Synoptic Gospels tell us Jesus refused. It may simply be remember that He promised He would not take part in any wine until the kingdom of God comes (see Luke 22:18), but maybe Jesus refused it because he refused to kill any pain. He was willing to go through the worst pain possible in order to save humankind from their sins. If there is one thing that John uniquely says about this passage, it’s the hyssop plant detail. This could simply be John using details, but it’s a possible John may be make a link to the Passover. At the Passover, the lamb’s blood was sprinkled with a branch of the hyssop plant. It’s a possible link to Jesus, the ultimate Passover lamb.

John ends the life of Jesus with Jesus saying, “It is finished,” obviously referring to the fact that Jesus finished everything the Father had willed for him, from his teaching ministry to the redemptive work on the cross. The death of Jesus is an odd one. Usually, in crucifixion, a person slowly and painfully died. A person could remain on the cross days, if not weeks, until that person died. The crucifixion of Jesus was indeed a painful one, but not as slow. Jesus died in a couple of hours, and he died all at once. If you really want to give a scientific answer, it was probably because of the blood loss from the flogging, but I rather simply believe it was the time the Father had planned for Jesus to die. Interesting enough, John does not mention any effects of Jesus giving up his life. No earthquake, no splitting rocks, no dead prophets coming to life, not even the centurions making a faith statement (especially odd when the faith statement in Matthew and Mark is that Jesus is the Son of God). Most importantly, John does not mention the temple curtain splitting into two, which all 3 Synoptic Gospel writers mention. You would think John would have that important theological event happening, but once again, I will remind you that if John has nothing new to add, he won’t add it.

What John uniquely mentions is the descriptive process of the burial. John reminds his Jewish readers that the Law states that a dead body cannot be hung on a tree (or cross in this case) over night or over a Sabbath. Because of the long process of crucifixion, the Jews would normally allow bodies to stay up overnight if they were Gentiles being crucified. But in this case you have a Jew being crucified. And this isn’t any ordinary night coming up. This is a Sabbath, more specifically the Passover Sabbath, a special Sabbath. The Jews wanted to make sure they were following the Law (once again, very ironic, because the Jews broke the law by rejecting and killing the Prophet like Moses) so they asked Pontius Pilate to speed the process up. The Romans discovered the crucifixion could be sped up by breaking the legs. In this way, the crucified person suffocated just as much as drowning in their internal lung fluid. Indeed, we know this is historically true because archaeologist have discovered crucified bodies with broken legs. So the Roman soldiers are going around, breaking the legs of the criminals still dying (the Bible states two men next to Jesus also being crucified, but it’s very possible there could be more), and they come to Jesus. They look at Jesus, and I imagine one soldier saying to the other, “I think he’s already dead.” Then I picture the other soldier say to him, “Well, let’s make sure.” Now what’s the logical thing to do? I think the logical thing to do would be to break his legs anyway, just in case. Yet they don’t do this. Instead, they poke his side with a spear and pierce Jesus again. Why did they do this instead of breaking his legs? John declares it was to fulfill a prophecy, as well as make him the perfect sacrifice. The Old Testament said that the sacrificial lamb could not have any broken bones. For Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice, his bones could not be broken. God prevented Jesus from having any bones broken. Instead, Jesus had his side pierced. John uniquely mentions that out of the piercing, blood and water flowed. There is nowhere near enough time to explain all the interpretations of this. Some scholars take it very literally and very medically. They believe the spear punctured the lung of Jesus, and crucifixion fills the lungs with blood and other internal fluids, like serum and water. Other scholars have taken it symbolically, that it is the blood of Jesus the Living Water that saves us from our sins and gives us eternal life. But I think that the overall picture we’re to understand is that Jesus was really dead. He was fully dead, not unconscious or in a coma. It also reveals Jesus to be a human, not just God appearing to be human, as some early cult group claimed.

As do all the Gospel writers, John credits Joseph of Arimathea for asking Pontius Pilate for the body. Mark and Luke tell us that Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin and both say he was looking forward to the kingdom of God, hinting that he believed Jesus was bringing about that kingdom. Both Matthew and John tell us that Joseph of Arimathea was follower of Jesus. Matthew uniquely says that Joseph was a rich man. Luke uniquely says that Joseph voted against the guilty verdict the Sanhedrin put on Jesus. John uniquely adds Joseph was a secret disciple because he feared what the Jews would do to him if he openly confessed. But Mark uniquely reveals that Joseph boldly went to Pilate for the body. I think that means that Joseph wasn’t trying to cover up to the Sanhedrin why he wanted to bury the body. Sick of their decisions and actions, Joseph boldly proclaimed his faith by serving Jesus this one last time.

Nicodemus must have witnessed Joseph’s bold moves because Nicodemus followed suit. He also was sick of the Jews’ hatred towards Jesus and He wanted to serve the great teacher one last time, too. Nicodemus is credited with providing the equipment needed for a proper burial according to Jewish customs. He provided 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes, perfumes used to cover up the stench and decay of a rotting body. Joseph and Nicodemus dressed Jesus in the proper burial clothes. Nearby in a garden was a tomb, meant for one person, and it had never been used. From the descriptions, scholars have noted this is a tomb meant for the rich. The poor had to share tombs with the extended family. Poor families could not afford garden maintenance around their tomb. This was a tomb meant for a rich man. Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, spent a lot of money to buy this time. He intended to use it for himself, but seeing it was the closest tomb to where Jesus was crucified, Joseph thought it was best to put Jesus in there instead. Thus, he was buried like a rich man, fulfilling Isaiah 53:9. This concludes John 19.

Back to Pontius Pilate. Believe it or not, the guilty sentence and execution of Jesus was not strike 3 for Pilate. History doesn’t really say why. There is no official Roman record from the Roman government declaring what the greater Roman government thought of Pilate’s decision. If I were to take a guess, I bet they had no problem with it. Pilate prevented further rioting and a possible insurrection. So if that meant killing a man to do so, then fine, do it. Yet that does not take Pilate off the hook. The Early Church Fathers all criticized Pontius Pilate for his decision. Jewish historians Josephus and Philo criticize Pilate for his actions. Even the Roman historian Taticus, a Roman and a worshipper of the pagan Roman gods, only notes Pilate for the death of Jesus, even above all his other famous (or should I say “infamous”) decisions. So throughout all of history, it doesn’t matter if you are Christian, Jewish, Gentile or Pagan, you’ll know Pontius Pilate from his role in the death of Jesus.

You’re probably wondering, “What could Pilate do that worse than this?” Well, it all happened in 36 A.D., a couple years after He sentenced Jesus to death. Part of Pontius Pilate’s jurisdiction was Samaria as well as Judea. So yes, Pilate was in charge of making sure the Jews and the Samaritans got along, not an easy task. Now before I get any further, I’m going to have to remind you of the cultural tension between the Jews and the Samaritans so this makes sense. Remember that the Jews would not allow Samaritans to worship at the temple on Mount Zion, so the Samaritans had to build their own temple on Mount Gerazim, and to the Jews’ disliking because the Jews claimed that the true temple was the one on Mount Zion. In order to justify their actions, the Samaritans had to re-write the Pentateuch, calling it the Samaritan Pentateuch, in order to re-adjust their justifications. For example, according to the Samaritan Pentateuch, Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac on Mount Gerazim, not Mount Moriah/Zion. Yet the Samaritans had very little proof for it. Well, in 36 A.D. a Samaritan prophet, who claimed to be the Samaritan Messiah, also claimed that God led him to discover the sacred vessels used in the original Tabernacle on Mount Gerazim. To him, as well as his followers, this was proof that the Tabernacle was originally set up on Mount Gerazim, and therefore, the Samaritans had enough proof, in their minds, that the temple on Mount Gerazim was the true one. The Jews, greatly angered by this false prophet, protested Pontius Pilate to do something. Pilate, continuing to try to win the Jews over, and also feeling uneasy about the large gathering at Mount Gerazim, sends a cavalry and heavily armed infantry to subdue the crowd. As with Pilate’s second strike, it’s unclear who attacked first, but the collision between the Samaritans and the Roman soldiers led to a full out brawl, leaving several Samaritans and Roman soldiers dead or dying, much more than the massacre of Jews when Pontius Pilate stole from the temple treasury. Of course, Pilate blamed the Samaritan false prophet and had him executed. But that did not clear everything up with Pilate. The Samaritans told on Pilate to a nearby Vitellius, the Roman governor of Syria, and Vitellius tattled on Pilate to Tiberius, the Roman emperor. Strike 3.

With strike 3, Pilate is out. In 36 A.D., Pilate was removed from the office of governor of Judea. Most likely, Pilate was removed from any governor position, if not any government position. From there, it is any good guess what happened to Pilate, for no historical source really records it. Just like the early years of Pilate, the later years of Pilate can only be found in traditions and legends. A lot of traditions state that Pilate committed suicide, most likely by hanging. Perhaps it was depression over repeated failures of being governor, or maybe Pilate was still feeling guilty about putting to death Jesus. Some of those traditions even say that the Caesar gave Pilate the option of killing himself or getting killed by the emperor, in which Pilate chose the former. Some legends say Pilate was executed by the Caesar. Most likely because his failures at being governor were seemed a crime against the Roman Empire, but there is another possibility. The other possibility stems from the idea that if an emperor executed him, it would be Emperor Nero. Nero is famous to Christians as the emperor who hated Christians. If he loved anything about Christians, he loved killing Christians. According to one traditional source, Pontius Pilate struggled every day with the fact he had Jesus executed. One day, however, word got around to Pilate that a handful of believers reported seeing Jesus alive again, and they believed he was the Son of God. According to this tradition, Pilate heard the news, believed in Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God, and came to faith. When Nero heard that one of his governors had become a Christian, Nero would not put up with and Nero had Pilate executed immediately, making Pilate a martyr of the faith. As lovely as this sounds, most scholars believe this source is pseudopigrapha, or “false writings.” Very few hold to it as true.

As we come to our close (sorry this is getting so long), I want us to go back to what we always do, and talk about two things. First, how does this chapter put to light the purpose John is trying to convey to the Christian reads? Second, how does John expect the Christian reads to apply this to our lives? Let’s start with the first question. How does the trial between Pontius Pilate and Jesus, as well as the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, reveal Jesus to be the Christ and the Son of God? Let’s start off by stating the obvious. John uses many Old Testament Scripture references within this passage to relate that Jesus is fulfilling prophecy. Even when Old Testament Scripture is not quoted, the Christian reader can connect what is happening to Jesus to Scripture in the Old Testament. Jesus is seen fluffing Messianic prophecy, making Jesus clearly the Messiah, or the Christ. It’s ironic that all Christians can see Jesus fulfilling the Messianic prophecy in his death, but the Jewish leaders who were suppose be experts in the Scriptures could not see it. On a slightly similar note, John shows us in this passage many references to the Passover and to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Jesus is seen as the sacrificial lamb who will pays for the sins of the world, once for all. He is the Passover lamb because He is without blemish, not so much physically, but spiritually, as in he has no sin. The Passover lamb could not have any bones broken, and Christ’s bones were never broken. The prophecies of the Messiah and the typology to the Passover lamb are too similar to be separated. The Christ is the Passover Lamb.

Moving on to our second question, how does the stories of the trials, crucifixion and burial of Jesus relate to our lives? For some reason or another, what really stuck out to be was what Jesus said about the power of the authorities in John. Let me bring up the verse that really stuck out to be on this subject

John 19:10,11-
10 “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

Even though this is only said to Pilate, the Roman governor, I really believe Jesus could have said to Annas or Caiaphas as well. Jesus had the power, the authority and the resources to prevent himself from being arrested, being imprisoned and being executed. Yet Jesus did not use them. Jesus allowed the authorities in power to do as they chose to. Clearly, everyone from Annas to Pilate was not godly men. Yet God used these men to bring apart his plan for salvation, even if it did not seem like godly actions were going on. Today, in America, as well as around the world, people tend to worry about how Godly or how Christian a president or a prime minister is. They will sharply oppose any politician or leader who does not proclaim faith to God or Jesus, and they are highly critical of actions that don’t seem Godly or Christian. The trial between Jesus and Pilate reminds Christians that things can sway either way, and who that person says they are may not always match up with their actions. Annas and Caiaphas were high priests. They were supposed to be the most spiritual Jews on the face of the earth. Yet they cast a verdict that was opposing God. In the same way, politicians can claim they are Christian, but that doesn’t mean every act they do will be Christian. Christians cannot simply mark every action they do as a good, godly action because they claim their action. Things are true on the opposite end, too. Pontius Pilate was a Roman, probably worshipping the pagan Roman gods. Yet Pontius Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent, and he even entertained the thought Jesus might be the Son of God. Even though Pilate did go through with the sentence, God used him to bring about salvation to the world. The Old Testament is full of examples where Gentile kings act godly in accordance with God’s will. When we see this, we must wonder, “Can God use even ungodly leaders to bring about His will and His plan for humanity?” If that is the case, we must not be harsh on the presidents and prime ministers that seem to be ungodly or not Christian. Even if their actions are not Christian or ungodly, God still might be using them. And when these leaders do act godly, we must praise them for it, and encourage it more.

Since this is quite a depressing subject, let me end with a joke, and a non-heretic one, too, that will perfectly transition us into the next chapter. Joseph of Arimathea spent a lot of money to buy an expensive tomb for Jesus. This baffled a lot of Joseph’s family and friends, on why he would spend so much money a controversial person that Joseph barely knew. Joseph’s friends and family questioned Joseph on why he spent so much money on a tomb for Jesus and not a tomb for himself. Joseph simply replied, “Don’t worry, it’s only for the weekend.” :-)

John 18: The Jewish People v. Jesus Christ

As always, let’s start with the setting of John 18. Jesus and his disciples crossed the Kidron Valley to go to the Mount of Olives, and on the Mount of Olives, Jesus prayed in a garden on the mountain, the Garden of Gethsemane. It will be on the Mount of Olives, possibly in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus will meet up with Judas Iscariot to be betrayed. The setting is important because of the irony. If you remember my discussion about Judas Iscariot in John 13, I mentioned that the original context of the Psalm 41 passage foretelling of the Messiah’s betrayer, in its original context, was most likely talking about Ahithophel, David’s trustworthy and honorable companion, who also betrayed David. I did much comparison between Ahithophel and Judas. The setting here is another one. Ahithophel also betrayed David somewhere between the Kidron Valley and the Mount of Olives, most likely the Mount of Olives (see 2 Samuel 15:30-31). Judas would fulfill the role of betrayer perfectly again by choosing to betray Jesus on the Mount of Olives. The text tells the Judas Iscariot was well aware that Jesus and the disciples would be there because Jesus had often gone to the Mount of Olives with his disciples when he was in Jerusalem.

Judas Iscariot came well prepared to take on Jesus. First, he made sure he had the right crowd of people, consisting of both Jews and Romans. For the Jews, John records Judas Iscariot bringing chief priests and Pharisee officials. Mark adds that there were teachers of the law and elders there, too. As for the Romans, John tells us Judas Iscariot had a large amount of Roman soldiers. The NIV uses the term “detachment of soldiers,” but a better translation would be “a cohort of soldiers,” like the NASB uses, because a cohort is a legitimate measure of soldiers in the Roman army. In the Roman army, a cohort was a subdivision of a legion. A legion would be divided into ten parts, and a tenth of a legion is a cohort. Since a legion is about 6,000 soldiers, a cohort would be about 600 soldiers. You might be thinking this is kind of large for arresting one man, even overkill, but this was nothing new for the Romans. If the Romans thought arresting one man might be dangerous, they would take along several soldiers to make sure nothing went wrong. Even Paul was accompanied by 200 soldiers when he was transferred (see Acts 23:23). If the Jews had made it sound like Jesus was declaring himself to be the new king and starting an insurrection with his disciples, the Romans might have thought that arresting such a man might start and insurrection, so they had to be prepared. Not only were they prepared in numbers of people, but also in equipment. John says everyone was carrying torches, lanterns and weapons. Matthew and Mark are more specific on the weapons: swords and clubs.

Now it may seem Judas Iscariot laid the perfect trap, know where Jesus was, but that’s far from the truth. Jesus, being the all-knowing God, knew what was going to happen to him, as stated in John 18:4. It is almost like Jesus allowed himself to be trapped. Jesus asks the mob “Who is it you want?” The mob replies, “Jesus of Nazareth,” to which Jesus answered. “I am he.” Truthfully, the NIV added the “he” part. In the original Greek, Jesus simply says, “ego eimi” which simply translated is “I am.” Yes, “ego eimi” is the exact wording Jesus says for all the “I AM” statements. We already agreed Jesus used the “I AM” statements to reveal himself to be the Great I AM himself, Yahweh. Perhaps Jesus was presenting himself as God himself one last time. When the Jew asked for Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus answered “Yahweh.” Maybe that’s why the Jews fell back – the reaction of the true name of God, which was sacred to them. But then why did the Romans fall back? For that I will remind you of a story in chapter 7 of John. In John chapter 7, the chief priests and Pharisees have asked temple guards to arrest Jesus. These temple guards were most likely Roman. Yet they come back empty handed. Why didn’t they come back with Jesus? Their answer is simply, “No one ever spoke the way this man does.” There was something about Jesus. Simply the way he spoke blew people away.

Now, before we go on, I want to make a note about the irony that the Bible Knowledge Commentary pointed out for me. On one side, you have Judas Iscariot, chief priests, Pharisees, teachers of the law, elders, and 600 Roman soldiers, all armed with lanterns, torches, clubs and swords. On the other side, you have Jesus, completely unarmed, with all his disciples asleep (see Luke 22:45-46). Yet who is the one in charge? Jesus is. The crowd cowers when Jesus speaks. The Gospel of Matthew records Jesus making everyone aware that he could have called 12 legions (about 72,000!) angels down to rescue Him. When you see the Jews and the Romans alike, you almost think like they were aware of it, or they were almost even expecting Jesus to use his miraculous powers against them. Yet Jesus doesn’t, and that adds to the irony. The one with the authority in this seen submits to his arrest. He willingly gave Himself up, and He does it with class. Jesus pretty much tells the mob, “I’m the one you want, so let my disciples go.” This has been foreshadowed all throughout John. In John 6, while preaching to the Jews, Jesus says that the will of His Father is not lose any of the disciples. In John 10, when preaching about the Good Shepherd, Jesus declares that like the Good Shepherd, he would not lose a sheep, even it meant laying his life down for the sheep. And one last time in John 17, while Jesus is praying to the Father, he prays that he will not lose a disciple to the end. Prayer request answered.

Well, Simon Peter isn’t going without a fight. He remembers that he promised Jesus that He will fight for Jesus, even if it meant giving up his own life. Peter doesn’t want to become the denier that Jesus predicted him to be, so he takes his sword and chops off the ear of Malchus, the high priest’s servant. Notice the use of detail in the story. John gives the high priest’s servant a name. He also states it was the right ear cut off, aligning perfectly with Luke’s account. It really makes the story come alive.

Now I’ve seen movies, TV shows, even church plays, acting out the actions happening here, and neither of them really makes this scene action packed. You see Peter lunging at the servant, cutting off the ear, and nobody makes a move. They all watch. I kind of get a feeling that maybe a small scuffle or a small brawl broke out, for Jesus has to rebuke both sides. In John, Jesus disciplines Peter for not accepting God’s will for Jesus, but in Matthew, Jesus disciplines Peter for using a sword because (1) all who live by the sword die by the sword, (2) Jesus could have called down angels to help him if He needed help and (3) the Scriptures needed to be fulfilled. When the disciples see how Jesus reacted, they feel like Jesus has taken away their “fight,” and so they are left with “flight” and they flee the scene. (Note: For Jesus rebuking the mob, you’ll have to go to your Synoptic Gospels.) Jesus then turns to the mob and questions their method of arresting Jesus. Every day, Jesus was publicly and peacefully in Jerusalem. Why didn’t they quietly arrest him there? Why did they have to come in a large mob privately at night?

Now that Jesus is arrested, we begin with the trials of Jesus. For right now (this paragraph), I am going to speak in light of all 4 Gospels. From all 4 Gospels, Jesus undergoes 6 trials. 3 trials are with the Romans, and 3 trials are with the Jews. The first trial is before high priest Annas. The second trial is before high priest Caiaphas. The third trial is before the whole Sanhedrin, all 70 members. The fourth trial is before Pontius Pilate. The fifth trial is before Herod. The sixth trial is a re-trial before Pontius Pilate. In his Gospel, John does not tell about the third trial in front of the Sanhedrin or the fifth trial before Herod. John only mentions that Jesus had a trial with Caiaphas, but John does not go into detail about what happened there. This is a Bible study on John, so instead of bouncing back and forth between Gospels, we’re going just to read on the trials that John reported. But we can get a lot of what John has told us. It is widely believed that John did follow Jesus at a distance, from the Mount of Olives to Golgotha, maybe even watching in on all of the trials (John 18:15,16). And John is the only one to report on the trial before Annas the high priest. So let’s take a look at that trial.

But before we even get to that, we have to discuss the high priest in the 1st century AD. In all 4 Gospels, it will seem like there are 2 high priests. Luke seems to say it explicitly in Luke 3:2a, “during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas…” If you remember in the Old Testament, there was only 1 person who was the high priest. This 1 person was the 1 and only person who could enter Holy of Holies 1 time a year. As the title hints, he is the highest of all priests. So how is there 2 by the time of Jesus? Well, there are a few theories. The first one is probably the simplest. The one high priest got stepped down and retired, and the next high priest stepped up. The stepping down high priest would be Annas, and the stepping up high priest would be Caiaphas. There are 2 problems with this first theory. The first probably is the question: “When?” When did Annas step down and Caiaphas step up? Well, obviously, it has be sometime during the earthly life of Jesus. Some of the proponents of the first theory say it happened between the birth and infancy of Jesus and the start of the ministry of Jesus, when Jesus was an adult. Other proponents of the first theory will say it happened during the 3-4 year span of Christ’s ministry. Still, both sides can not pin down a certain day or week, or even a month. Why they can’t, well, that leads us to our second problem. The second problem of the first theory is: “Why?” Why would a high priest step down? In the Old Testament, the high priest served for his whole life, until the day he died. They did not retire. There was no such thing as being “too old” to be a high preist. So why would Annas retire or step down? After all, as we will see in John 18, Annas still has a pretty serious role among the priests. (The best way to explain this, is that it wouldn’t make sense for Pop Benedict XVI to step down or retire, but continue to work with the new pope.) The other theories try to explain the why.

Our second theory does explain both the “when” and the “why.” The “why” has to deal with the political situation with the Romans. When the Romans were in charge, they didn’t mind the local regions or the local people groups having their own leader. They would even let them have their own king! But when all was said and done, that “king” reported to the local governor, who reported to Caesar. The best example would be Herod. Herod was the “king of the Jews,” but he ultimately had to report the governor, Pontius Pilate. I put “king of the Jews” in quotes because not every Jew received Herod as their king, including the religious leaders. First of all, it didn’t help that Herod wasn’t full-blood Jew, but rather half-Jew and half-Roman. The Jews expected their king to be fully Jewish. Second, and probably most important, it wasn’t the Jews that picked Herod as king, but rather the Romans. The Romans didn’t mind the local people groups having a king…as long as that king met their expectations and their approval. Between these two reasons, most Jews saw Herod as puppet to the Romans, so many Jews did not accept him. But what does this have to do with the high priests? Well, the Romans knew that the high priest had a strong leadership role. But the Jews refused to allow the Romans to touch it. They pretty much said to the Romans, “Oh no. We’ll let you pick and choose our king, but you will not touch our high priest. Our high priest has always been a descendant of Aaron, and he always will be.” Well, the Romans weren’t too pleased with that. They didn’t want a person being high priest for too long, in fear that the high priest will gain too much power over time and try something risky, like trying to overthrow the Roman government. So around 15 A.D., the Romans said to Annas, “Alright you’ve been high priest for 9 years. Your time is up. Select another high priest or we will.” Annas, not wanting to cause any problems, reluctantly submitted to the Romans. He chose Caiaphas to be his replacement. While this second theory answers the “when” and “why,” it still has holes. First of all, not everyone agrees with exactly what I wrote above. Some will say that it was the Romans who chose Caiaphas, not Annas. Others will claim that while Caiaphas stepped up, it doesn’t necessarily mean Annas stepped. These people will suggest that Annas and Caiaphas alternated as the high priest every year. The Romans were okay with this because they believed no high priest could amass a lot of power in one year, and then get it back after a year of not being high priest. So there are disagreements within the theory. Also, the second theory doesn’t fully answer the question, “Why Caiaphas?” Annas has 5 sons. So why didn’t he choose a son but rather his son-in-law Caiaphas?

The third theory attempts to answer that. This theory focuses in on the religious parties of the Jewish religion: the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees and Sadducees did sharply disagree on things, in both the political realm and the religious realm. According to the this theory, the Pharisees and Sadducees disagreed so sharply in the first century that they did not trust a high priest of the opposite party. So the Pharisees would not trust a Sadducee high priest and the Sadducees would not trust a Pharisee high priest. So the Pharisees chose a Pharisee high priest and the Sadducees would choose a Sadducee high priest. This would result in 2 high priests and this is why you have 2 high priests in the time of Jesus. Caiaphas is believed to be the Sadducee high priest and the Pharisee high priest is Annas. There are a couple problems with this theory. If on the Day of Atonement, only one man was to enter the Holy of Holies, which one would it be? Wouldn’t it be wrong for both of them to enter? Also, Annas and Caiaphas seem to be agreeing to well to be of opposite parties. Even over Jesus, the Pharisees and Sadducees disagreed about Jesus (see Luke 20:27-40).

If you made me pick between the 3 theories, I guess I would have to choose the second theory because it has the most scholars behind it, and it has the fewest objections. But I do believe all 3 theories show us something about Annas and Caiaphas. The biggest observation is Annas and Caiaphas are working together, almost as equals. If there is a hierarchy, it would be Annas over Caiaphas, as Annas sometimes seems to whisper into the ear of Caiaphas what decisions to make. The trial of Jesus would be a good example. Jesus has to first go in front of Annas. According to all 3 theories (or at least the first and second), Annas is not the high priest at the time, but rather Caiaphas is. But Jesus has to go to Annas so Annas can decide what Caiaphas should do. After all, Caiaphas does seem to follow suit with Annas.

Back to the text. When brought before Annas, Annas asks Jesus questions about His disciples and His teachings. These would be normal questions on the accusations of starting an insurrection. From the broader Gospel view of Christ’s trials, we know the trials Jesus faced were unfair and illegal (not up to legal standards), but there is a small proof of that in this text. In John 18:19, John records Annas asking question. According to Jewish tradition, the high priest was to act more like a judge, and less like a prosecuting attorney. Just as the judge is not allowed to ask the defendant questions, so the high priest was not allowed to ask defendant Jesus questions. Yet Jesus does not shy away from these questions. Jesus says to Annas that all His teaching has been public. So everything Annas heard is true, and there is nothing more to say. But defendant Jesus goes on to call witnesses for himself. He tells Annas that anyone who heard him will be able to testify everything that he has said. Perhaps Jesus was calling out Annas for setting up an improper trial. A proper trial would have real and honest witnesses, and they could attest that Jesus was innocent.

Well, one of the officials took that as Jesus sassing the high priest and that official struck Jesus in the face. Here we see another error in the trial. It was illegal to bring any kind of physical pain or harassment to a defendant who was still considered innocent. At this point (and throughout all of the trials), Jesus remains innocent. Jesus proceeds to call this official out, too. Jesus knows that the slap would only be necessary if He did something wrong. So he asks the official what he did wrong to deserve it. I can almost picture the official dumfounded because he knew Jesus did nothing wrong. Then Jesus continues to pressure for his witnesses to be brought for, even asking the official to be his witness.

From here, Annas has gotten all he needed. Annas probably was hoping for more out of his end of the trial, in order to give Caiaphas the decision he needs to make. All that happens, however, is Annas’s trial is put under question by Jesus. He’s not really getting anything, so Annas just moves him on to his “real-er” trial with Caiaphas. But I think at this point Annas has also declared Jesus guilty in his mind, even without proof or witnesses.

John doesn’t record either of the other Jewish trials. He doesn’t record the trial with Caiaphas, and he doesn’t record the trial in front of the Sanhedrin (most likely led by Caiaphas). Yet John is the only Gospel writer to write about the trial with Annas. Why would John mention the trial with Annas, and not the other trials? Although John may not necessarily be painting a picture of Jesus as God or the Christ, I do believe John is trying to look at the Jewish trials from another point of view, and it kind of goes back to what we see at Christ’s arrests. Remember how I pointed out the irony of Jesus, the one who seems to be in power and have control, ends up being the lowly, submissive one? Well, the trial at Annas portrays the same Jesus. Annas tries to question the teachings of Jesus, but Jesus ends up questioning Annas’s motives and his trial. Annas tries to make Jesus look guilty, but Jesus ends up proving His innocence. Annas attempts to win the trial, but Jesus ends up being the winner. John keeps on adding onto the irony that while Jesus is bound, he is the one in control. If in any way this shows Jesus is God, this is the proof. On the earth as a man, Jesus might be submissive and humbled, but in heavenly realm as God, Jesus is the king, judge and ruler over Annas, Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.

I’m going to stop right there. Once again, I will remind you that while the text of the Scriptures are the inerrant, inspired revelation from God, the numbering of the chapters and verses are not. I believe it would have been better to end chapter 18 at verse 27 and began chapter 19 where John 18:28. Why? John 18:28 begins a new phase of the trials for Jesus. Jesus has gone through 3 Jewish trials, and all trials have found him guilty, even though they are unjust and illegal. Even though the Jews want to pass the death penalty, they cannot, for they need Roman permission to do so. So it’s up to the Romans to decide whether or not Jesus deserves death. Will they pass the same judgment? We’ll have to see in chapter 19, but I will pick up again in chapter 18.

John 17: The Lord's Longer Prayer

If I were to inquire any Christian about the Lord’s Prayer, most of them would know immediately what I am asking about. Most of them would probably start rattling it off for me because most of them have it memorized. The “Lord’s Prayer” for Protestants is like the “Hail Mary” for Catholics. A lot of traditional Protestant Christian churches will have the Lord’s Prayer prayed in every church service. Everyone knows that prayer…yet very few people know about another prayer the Lord Jesus spoke. Perhaps Christians don’t know it because it’s too long. Maybe Christians don’t know it because Jesus didn’t teach His disciples to necessarily learn this prayer and pray this prayer. Yet this prayer can teach Christians a lot, so much that some Christians have suggested the prayer in John 17 should be the prayer actually called the “Lord’s Prayer.” In fact, some scholars have called this prayer in John 17 the “High Priestly Prayer” because Jesus talks like a High Priest in this chapter. So to learn from this chapter, I’m going to pick out special spots of interest to explain, then I’m going to use the chapter to paint the bigger picture of Jesus as the Son of God, then conclude with some good application.

Before I start taking note of things, let me remind of the setting and of the debate of the setting. The setting is not clear cut, and there are four places where this prayer could take place. The first possible place is in the Upper Room of the Last Supper, after Judas Iscariot has left. The second possible place is en route from the Upper Room to the Mount of Olives/Garden of Gethsemane, whether it be a “walking and talking” kind of deal to a pit stop outside in Jerusalem. The third possible place is the Mount of Olives, and the fourth possible place is in the Garden of Gethsemane. The first and second possibilities would make us think that it was said in public, in front of the disciples. The fourth possible place would kind of have a private feel. The third place could go either way in terms of publicly or privately. No matter where the location is, I don’t think it changes any interpretation of the prayer.

The first thing I like to note is the order that Jesus prays in. If you’re reading from the New International Version (at least, the 1984 edition), the NIV headlines John17 into 3 sections: Jesus Prays for Himself, Jesus Prays for His Disciples, Jesus Prays for All Believers. Jesus starts by praying for himself, then He prays for those people close to him (His disciples), and then He prays for other people, the ones not as close to Him (All believers). Between Christian middle school, Christian high school, Bible College, and ministry training, I’ve been told to do the opposite. First, you pray for the greater good of all humankind. This would include, but not be limited to, ending world hunger, access to clean drinking water for everyone, clothing the naked, building homes for the homeless, finding orphans loving families, ending child abuse, curing the AIDS epidemic, teaching inner-city kids how to read, bringing about world peace, keeping the earth clean, etc. (and before you know it, this portion of the prayer sounds like you’re competing to be Miss America). Second, you prayer for other people who are close to you with specific requests, or even just the general blessing on your family, relatives and friends (God bless mom, God bless dad, God bless grandma, God bless grandpa, etc.). Then you finally pray for yourself. These two methods are quite opposite. Does that mean that they are contradictory? Is Jesus wrong? Is the church/Christians wrong? I think neither of them is wrong. If you look at both methods, both agree on one thing: God, God’s Will, God’s Plan, God’s Desire, and God’s Glory all come first. All that Christians pray for, whether it is for humankind, close family & friends, or ourselves, it all should come back to God. Everything that Jesus prays for is in order for God the Father to get the glory. As Christians, when we prayer, whether it be for ourselves or others (whether those “others” are close to us or distant to us), we need to keep what God wills and desires in mind. (Also note that when Jesus prays for Himself, it is the shortest part.)

What you might notice through these 3 sections is that they all have the same basic pattern. First, Jesus states: “This is what I have done.” Then Jesus gives His request to His Father: “Now, Father, do this.” It’s almost like Jesus is saying, “I did my part, now you follow through and do your part.” Is this bossing God around or bargaining with God? It is neither. Instead, it opens up our eyes to the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. They are not fully independent of each other, yet at the same time, they are not dependant on each other. Instead, they are interdependent, which is the in-between result of dependency and independency. God the Father and God the Son work together for the greater good and to bring about glory. Ultimately, it is proof that the Father and the Son are one and the same, meaning Jesus is God.

John 17:1-5 is the section where Jesus prays for Himself. Jesus reports to the Father what He did: Jesus completed the work the Father gave Him and provided the people a way for eternal life. Jesus asks His Father to continue to give him glory up to the cross, so that God the Father may continue to the glory. The only other thing I want to point out is in verse 5. Jesus asks the Father for the same glory that Jesus had with God before the world was created. Jesus is stating that He was around before the world even came into existence. This verse shows that Jesus is just as eternal as God the Father, thus making Jesus God.

The second section is Jesus praying for His disciples, now down to eleven. Jesus starts out by reporting to the Father what He has done with His disciples, and it is quite a hefty list. First, Jesus made Hi disciples aware of God the Father (vs. 6). Second, Jesus taught His disciples the Word and made sure they obeyed it (vs.8). Third, Jesus prayed for the disciples (vs. 9). Fourth, Jesus has protected The Eleven, so they are safe (vs. 12). Fifth, Jesus commissioned them into the world (vs. 18). Sixth and last, Jesus began their process of sanctification (vs. 19). Jesus then pleads to His father on the disciples’ behalf. At least half of Christ’s requests are continuations of what Jesus began. Just as Jesus began sanctification, Jesus then asks God to continue to sanctify the disciples (vs. 17). Just as Jesus protected the disciples and kept them safe, Jesus requests that God should protect the disciples and keep them safe. But Jesus asks God for more than that. First, Jesus prays that the disciples may receive joy. Then Jesus petitions God to unify the disciples. All of these acts I see as only possible through the Holy Spirit. So although Jesus does not say it directly, I believe Jesus is requesting the Holy Spirit from the Father for His Disciples. Jesus didn’t want to break a promise that Jesus made with His disciples in chapters 14-16, so Jesus prays for it one last time to make sure it comes true.

In John 17:12, Jesus mentions he kept everyone safe and protected. In the NIV, Jesus proceeds to say, “None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.” This is one of the few times I don’t like the NIV because it doesn’t clearly show the wordplay here. For that, we need to look at a more literal translation. The NASB says, “not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.” This is much more helpful to see the wordplay. “Perdition” is pretty much the noun form of “perished.” Indeed, the Greek word for perish (apoleto) and the Greek word for perdition (apoleias) have the same root. Jesus is pretty much saying “the one who perished was the one meant to perish.” Clearly this is talking about Judas Iscariot, even though Jesus does not explicitly call him by name. And that’s the eerie part. The name Jesus gives Judas Iscariot, whether it’s “the one doomed to destruction” or “the son of perdition” (both are translations of the Greek phrase “huios tēs apoleias”), is a name given to Satan Himself, the Antichrist (with a Capital A), as well as antichrists (lowercase a). This is not a name to mess around with. It talks about someone in deep trouble with God. The person with this title is almost like sin incarnate, or something close to it. This person has been destined, even predestined to hell. So yes, Judas Iscariot is in the same camp as Satan and the Antichrist. This really adds on to your views on Judas Iscariot.

Some of your Bibles (like the NIV 1984 ed. or ESV) might have a footnote marked next to the word “sanctify” in John 17:17, in attempts to explain it. If you were to read the Bible in order, starting in Genesis, this would be the first time you’d come across it. The were is not found at all in the Old Testament, and none of the Synoptic Gospels mention it. Verses 17 and 19 in John 17 are the only two verses to have the word in the whole book of John. Yet in the rest of the New Testament, the word will be used 13 more times. Sanctification plays an important role in our salvation. What does it mean? The 1984 edition of the NIV does the best explaining of it. The Greek word for “sanctify” is hagiazo, which means “to set apart for sacred use” or “to make holy.” My 4th grade Sunday School teacher, teaching this term out of Romans, had an easy way to explain the noun form “sanctification”: “Sanctification is the process of becoming more like Jesus Christ.” Now this makes perfect sense for us as Christians. Despite being saved, that does not make us immediately perfect. We still fight the sinful nature, except now we have the Holy Spirit giving us the upper hand. In the Christian life, sanctification is the process of becoming less sinful and become more holy, like God and Jesus. But what did Jesus mean when he says he sanctifies himself? Isn’t he already holy or sacred? Yes, he is. Jesus is using “sanctify” differently when talking about himself. When Christians talk about being sanctified, they are sanctified in their lives, by becoming living sacrifices. When Jesus talked about being sanctified, he’s talking about His death. His death is a holy, sacred act, and it will make sanctification possible to all humankind.

The third section is Jesus praying all believers, both the present believers and the future believers. This would include the future believers his present believers will make. Jesus only reports two things that He has done for all his believers: Jesus has made God known to the believers (vs. 26) and Jesus has given the believers God’s glory (vs. 22). Yet Christ’s list of prayer requests for them is much longer. First, Jesus prays that all believers may have unity (vs. 20-23). Second, Jesus petitions God to give the believers His love, so that the believers may pass on that love to other people (vs. 23-26). Third, Jesus requests that God will continue to give the believers glory, just as Jesus gave them glory (vs. 24). Willmington’s Bible Handbook reminds everyone that these prayer requests were answered. They began at the First Coming of Jesus Christ, and they will end, fully completed, at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Now the question that might have arisen from both the section praying for the disciples and the section praying for all believers is the topic of unity. What does Jesus mean when He is praying for unity? The obvious answer would be that the disciples and believers would be unified to one another. That would seem like the most literal understanding of the topic, and some scholars do understand that’s what unity is being prayed for. Yet other scholars will shy away from. These other scholars will think about the Great Schism in 1054, the Reformation in the 1500s, and all the denominations that have resulted from both events in history. It would seem like Christ’s prayer was not answer, or was not fulfilled. So other scholars will say that Jesus is praying that the disciples and believers will be unified with God, just like Jesus is unified with God. So which one is right? Well, it all depends on how you are seeing the relationship between God and Jesus in this passage. Do you see the relation between Yahweh and Jesus as the relationship between God the Father and God the Son? If so, it would be an equal relationship, or equal unity. Then Jesus is praying that the disciples and believers would be unified with one another, for Jesus would not be praying for humans to be equal to God, but for humans to be equal with fellow humans. Do you see the relationship between Yahweh and Jesus as a relationship between God and man, or a relationship between a lord/master and his servant? If so, it would be hierarchy relationship, or a hierarchy unity. Then Jesus is praying for unity between God and believers, for believers are just as much His servants as they are His friends and His children (and even children are below their parents). It’s hard to say which view of the relationship is right, for Jesus filled both roles: He is equal to God, yet He submits to God. If you were to ask me, I would go back to the overall picture John is trying to portray for us. John is trying to show the reader that Jesus is God’s Son. A son is not above his father, but the father is above the son. Thus, the relationship is not seen as equal, but as one submitting. Therefore, the better interpretation is Jesus is asking God for His disciples and His believers to be united with God. Yet this does not mean we can throw the idea of unity between Christians out the window. Paul constantly begs in his epistles for the church to reach unity. So Christians need to pray for and seek after unity with one another, just like they are unified with God. (And some scholars will say that if Jesus was praying for believers to be united with other believers, it still hasn’t gone unanswered. There are still some orthodox doctrine that all Christians believe in, no matter what denomination they are a part of. In this way, Christians are united.)

So how does John 17 add to the whole Gospel of John? What new insight does John 17 give the reader to demonstrate to the reader that Jesus is God the Son? Count the number of times you see Jesus pray “Father” in John 17. I counted 6 times. Furthermore, it is used 122 times in the Gospel of John, 53 times in John 13-17 alone! This is new for prayer. Old Testament Jews would rarely call God their Father in prayer. When Jesus prays, He is obviously talking to God. In John 17, Jesus is calling God directly His Father (as opposed to earlier in the chapter, where Jesus references God as “Father” in the 3rd person). For a Jew to do this, this would be bold, maybe even blasphemous. Jesus sees no problem in this, for He is the Son of God, He is God, and He is equal with God.

So what can Christians learn from all this? First of all, it gives Christians good ideas about what to pray for in our daily prayers. Christians should pray for God’s glory to be revealed. Christians should pray for God to shower down love on His people, so we as Christians can pass on the love. Christians need to pray for unity between God and Christians, as well as between fellow Christians. Christians need to pray for safety, both physically and spiritually. Second, prayer can happen anywhere and be just as effective. It doesn’t matter where Jesus prayed this prayer, and it shouldn’t matter where we as Christians lift up prayers to our God. Third, we need to keep God and His Will at the center of our prayers. I remember one time my friends and I got together to pray for a common friend whose non-Christian mom was facing death. While we went around in a circle, all my friends simply prayed that God would heal her, but I felt led to pray differently. So when it came my turn, I prayed, “Lord, may she not die until she has received you as Lord and Savior.” My friend’s mom would fight off death and live. So whose prayer was answered? Obvious the former prayers were answered, but I continue to pray that the latter prayer might be answered as well. My point is when praying, even for other people’s well-being, pray with God at the center. And when God is in the center, there is no such thing as a selfish prayer.

If there is anything that this prayer in John 17 and the Lord’s Prayer has in common, it would be that both pray for God’s Kingdom to come and God’s Will to be done. May we truthfully and honestly be able to pray that every time, and allow whatever it takes for it to come true.

John 16: The Trinity Revealed Again

In John 16, we will continue our talk about the Trinity. John 14-16 has been all about trinity. John 14 was the Trinity we are most familiar with. It’s the one between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, marked with a capital T. John 15 was a different trinity. This trinity was between God, Jesus and Christians, marked with a lowercase t. John 16 will get us back to talking about the Trinity with a capital T again. Yet John 16 will not be a full discussion on the Trinity. John 16 will focus on the person of the trinity we talked about the least so far: the Holy Spirit. But before we get into that, you’ll remember that John 15 I cut off at verse 17, explaining that verses 18 to 27 would fit better in chapter 16 than in chapter 15. So I’ll briefly go over the remaining verses in chapter 15 to set the scene, but then we’ll dive right into chapter 16.

John 15:18-25 is pretty much Jesus not trying to sugar-coat the dire situation the disciples would be facing. He reminds them of what he said just a few minutes earlier, as recorded in John 13:16: “No servant is greater than his master.” In its original context, it was simply Jesus calling the disciples to live a humbled life, for it was the only way to be truly great in the kingdom of God. Now Jesus says it again to state the obvious fact that if people hated the master, they will hate his servants as well. Jesus pretty much says to the disciples that every thing they see the Jews and the Romans do to Jesus, it will happen to them. Just as Jesus was persecuted, so the disciples will be persecuted. Just as Jesus was martyred, so the disciples will be martyred. Jesus tells the disciples not to take it personally because it’s really their hatred of the Father that results in the hatred towards them. But Jesus does add a flip side to all this negative talk. Anyone who listens to and receives the teachings of Jesus will also listen to the disciples’ teachings about the Father and the Son.

The last 2 verses of John 15 are the perfect transition to our talk about the Holy Spirit in John 16. In verse 26, the Holy Spirit is called the “Counselor.” Verse 26 tells us the Counselor is from the Father and is sent out by the Son. Putting together verses 26 and 27, we understand a job the Holy Spirit has. The Holy Spirit aids Christians in testifying about Jesus. Jesus specifically commands the disciples to testify because they have been with Jesus since the beginning. As we remember from John 1, some of the disciples were even there to witness the baptism of Jesus. The Holy Spirit was given to the disciples to help them remember everything about Jesus they witnessed, and the power to proclaim Jesus boldly in the face of persecution, for they are going to need it.

The first 4 verses of John 16 go back off the topic of the Holy Spirit and go back on the topic of the world hating the disciples. Once again, Jesus reminds of them of the persecution they will face. One of the persecutions they will face is being “put out of the synagogue.” This is not simply to be taken literally. This is excommunication, or shunning. Jews would treat anyone “put out of the synagogue” as if they were Gentiles. It was one of the greatest shames in the Jewish culture. The disciples would have to face this. Jesus goes on to say that not only will the disciples face execution, but even more so that the enemies of the disciples will think they are executing the disciples to please God. Once again, Jesus states the reason for giving them the bad news is to be realistic to them. He didn’t give the bad news right away because he knew the disciples weren’t ready for it yet, and He didn’t want them leaving merely because of it. But after hearing all this bad news, no wonder why the disciples will scatter during the Christ’s trials and crucifixion in John 18 and 19. No wonder the disciples will keep the doors locked after the resurrection in John 20. After hearing all this bad news, they seriously believe all the Jewish leaders will come after them next. And this bad news is starting to get to them. Jesus notices it in verse 6. If the disciples’ faces were sad in chapters 13 and 14, they are downright depressed in chapters 15 and 16.

Jesus tries to comfort the disciples by telling them that it is good for Jesus to leave them. If Jesus does not leave them, the Counselor will not come. Have you ever thought about if it was a good trade off to lose Jesus in order to gain the Holy Spirit? I think it was. The first and obvious reason that comes to mind is our access to God. If we had Jesus instead of the Holy Spirit right now, to see God, we’d probably have to get on a plane to Israel, get though the crowds in Jerusalem (you think it’s crowded in Jerusalem now, imagine how it crowded it could be with Jesus there), stand in a very long line to meet with Jesus, and then only get a few seconds or a couple of minutes, and then we’d have to move on and allow the next person his few seconds or couple of minutes. The relationship wouldn’t be that close. With the Holy Spirit, God comes to us and meets with us. Therefore, the relationship is closer and personal. Also, think about all the things the Holy Spirit equips and enables us to do. The Holy Spirit gives us spiritual gifts. The Holy Spirit aids in understand the Bible, the Word of God. The Holy Spirit guides us in prayer. The Holy Spirit encourages and strengthens us to evangelize. With Jesus still on earth, there’s no Holy Spirit, and we get none of them. It truly is for our own good that Jesus isn’t here.

Jesus goes on to tell the disciples about more of those roles the Holy Spirit has. One role the Holy Spirit has is to convict the world of sin. Notice the word is “convict” and not “condemn.” To condemn the world of sin would mean to say they world is beyond all hope of being saved from their sin. The Holy Spirit does not do that. The Holy Spirit simply convicts. To convict means “to present” or “to expose.” The Holy Spirit simply exposes that the world is in sinner. The task may seem simply, but in today’s society, we know it’s far from it. It seems like with every passing generation, more people adapt the theory that human beings are generally good creatures. They are born good, with a clean slate. Throughout their life, they make both good and bad choices on their own. By the end of their life, most people make more good choices than bad choices, making them good people. This is far from Biblical truth. The Bible tells us we were conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5), and born in sin (Genesis 8:21). We have a sinful nature, meaning our hearts are slaves to sin, always pulled to doing the wrong (Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 6:16,17). On top of that, we do sinful things. We have 3 strikes against ourselves: we are conceived/born in sin, we have a sinful nature, and we do sinful things. 3 strikes and we’re out. We are declared guilty from the start. And yet the world lies to us and tells us we’re good. As any AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) member will tell you, “admitting your problem is the first step.” The first step in the cure of sin is admitting you have a problem: you are a sinner. The Holy Spirit has a lot of work to do get a person to even recognize they are sinful.

On that same note, John 16:13 gives us another role of the Holy Spirit. This role is to guide human beings into all truth. That is why Jesus uses the title “The Spirit of Truth” for the Holy Spirit this time. “All truth” literally does mean “all truth.” Everything that is true the Holy Spirit will speak to the disciples. The Holy Spirit will speak and remind the disciples of God’s commandments and Christ’s teachings. But probably the most important truth the Holy Spirit gives goes back to the previous job. The most important truth is that the world has fallen into sin. But going back to all truth part, verses 13-15 once again show the active role of Trinity. When the Holy Spirit comes, he’s not going to teach on His own accord or His own will. He will not teach anything contradictory to what God has commanded or what Jesus has taught. He will only speak what He hears. What does the Holy Spirit hear? What Jesus spoke. And what did Jesus speak? Only what His Father taught Him to speak. It all goes around in this Trinity cycle.

On top of being saddened because Jesus is leaving, the disciples are also confused. Sometimes Jesus has been repeating himself in tongue twisters. Just look below, and I’ll show you what I mean. I’ll even bold it to draw it out.

John 16:16–19-
16 “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.” 17 Some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” 18 They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.” 19 Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’?

I think in verses 19 to 22, Jesus is presenting the idea that the disciples might be confused because they are sad. Once again, Jesus does sugar-coat the reality. The truth is the disciples will get sadder, while the world becomes happier. This is referring to the crucifixion of Jesus, where the world will rejoice while the disciples mourn at Christ’s death. But Jesus turns it around by comparing it to a woman in labor. A pregnant woman giving birth goes through much pain to give birth. But after the baby pops out and she is holding the baby, she is no longer complaining about the pain, but rather she is glad that she brought the life into the world. After the pain of the crucifixion, the disciples will witness the resurrection, and their grief will turn into joy. In a way, I see this as a prophecy of Jesus, for that is exactly what will happen. The witnesses of the crucifixion will be brought to tears, but they will gladly rejoice when they see the resurrected Jesus Christ standing before them.

John 16:23-28 I see as happening post-resurrection and post-ascension, so I see it as a third role of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says the disciples will have the power to request anything in the name of Jesus, and they will get it. Now let’s make sure we get our head in the right place here. This doesn’t mean Christians can ask for worldly possessions, likes houses, cars or money and it will land right in front of them. This is where the “in the name of Jesus” comes into play. “In the name of Jesus” means that anything that is of God’s Will or Desire, that will further the kingdom and reign of God. Well, how will the disciples know God’s Will? That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in. The Holy Spirit will reveal the will of God to the disciples because the Holy Spirit is God. Then, because of the Holy Spirit, the disciples will know what to pray for, and they will receive it from God.

Somewhere between verse 19 and verse 28, the disciples finally get what Jesus is saying. They can understand his figurative language and other figures of speech. They understand so well, they don’t even have to ask questions. Now they know that Jesus knows all truth, and this is enough proof for them that Jesus has come from God. When the disciples finally recognize what Jesus is saying, Jesus recognizes that a true faith has entered the disciples. But he also notes that the disciples don’t have that full, true faith because in a little while, they will all scatter and desert Jesus. But Jesus isn’t going to take it that hard. Jesus knows the Father is with him, so even if no human is behind Him, He knows the Father is with him. In the closing verse of this chapter, Jesus once again reminds the disciples of all the troubles they will face being disciples of Jesus. But He also tells them to not get stuck on the idea. Jesus will overcome all those troubles, and so will the disciples.

In closing with this chapter, there wasn’t too much revealing of Jesus as the Son of God. The biggest sign was that the disciples recognized Jesus as one from God from His teachings, and that is fairly close to recognizing Jesus is God. It also is implicitly stated by seeing Jesus as a person of the Triune God. But I tend to think this chapter was a little bit more about the Holy Spirit. If anything, this chapter shows us the Holy Spirit is God, too. So it doesn’t matter if you say that “Jesus lives in me” or “The Holy Spirit lives in me” for they are both God living in you.

John 15: A trinity of a different sort

Trinity. If you can figure out the two words that were brought together to make the bigger word, you can figure out its definition. Upon careful observation, you can notice the word “trinity” is a combination of tri-, a prefix meaning three, and unity, which means to bring together as one. In the most broad and basic sense, a trinity is when three of something are united as one. When Christians think of trinity, they usually think of Trinity with a capital T, which is the unity of the three-person Godhead as one God. Although Trinity can be seen throughout the Bible, the word “Trinity” itself is never used at all in the Bible. This has caused some controversy inside and outside the Christian community, even causing a few “denominations” (Evangelical Christians would claim these groups are more cult than denomination) to deny the doctrine of Trinity all together. This post is not a post defending Trinity, although I strongly believe in the Trinity. This post is going to look at a trinity, with a lowercase t. Lowercase t trinity means any 3 things closely related, in common unity with one another. While Christians like talking about Trinity, with a capital T, between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I see a trinity in John 15:1-17 of a different sort. This trinity has the God the Father and God the Son, but instead of God the Holy Spirit, it has Christians. John 15:1-17 shows the relationship between Yahweh, Jesus, and the people, and Jesus will use his last “I AM” statement of the Gospel of John to do so.

Before we dive into the material, we have to take a small step back, into the last verse of John 14. In John 14:31, Jesus says to his disciples, “Come now; let us leave.” But then, in John 18:1, John records that when Jesus finishes his discourse and finishes praying, Jesus leaves with his disciples and crosses the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives. These verses seem to be contradicting themselves, which has led to debate. Some people say Jesus said John 15-17 in the Upper Room, others say that Jesus speaks John 15-17 on the Mount of Olives, and yet others have tried to compromise, claiming that Jesus gave the John 15-17 discourse while walking from the Upper Room to the Mount of Olives. The proponents of the Mount of Olives setting claims that the Mount of Olives setting would be the perfect setting, for Jesus could use his surroundings as a visual aid to his preaching. Furthermore, the Mount of Olives is where the Garden of Gethsemane was at, which would be the perfect setting for Christ’s prayer in John 17. Yet the wording of John 18:1 sounds too clear and too plain to say that Jesus just got to the Mount of Olives at John 18, and Jesus wasn’t there before. So this reverts back to that Jesus said this en route to the Mount of Olives. He might have even stopped part way outside to teach one last teaching at pray. These people would say that John 14:31 is departing the Upper Room, while John 18:1 is departing the city. The opponents of this view claim it makes no sense for Jesus to be teaching, and especially for Jesus to be praying, while walking. Once again, they will point to the clearness of John 18:1. That would leave the view that John 15-17 took place in the Upper Room. This would fit, as it goes along with the teaching in the Upper Room, and it make sense for Jesus to pray during the Passover Feast. The only hole that these people leave uncovered is that they will totally ignore the John 14:31. Well, that’s all the possibilities, right? Well, there are a few people who have suggested that the chapters should be rearranged in John. Some would put chapter 14 between chapters 17 and 18, while others say the order should be John 13, 15, 14, 16, John 18:1, 17, and then 18:2-40. And of course, you also have to have a couple people who try to give an allegorical meaning to John 14:31. They would say something like, “What Christ meant was that His disciples and His teachings would not stay in Jerusalem after He died, but they would spread around the world.” All I have to say about this is a helpful reminder that John’s Gospel is a supplementary Gospel, and thus a topical Gospel. After Jesus entered Jerusalem on that Palm Sunday, John stopped caring so much about the setting, like the place and the time. So all views and possible, and yet at the same time, all views could be wrong. I would focus less on the setting and more on what is being preached. As Uncle from Jackie Chan Adventures would say, “Setting not important!”

Alright, let’s talk about the trinity (lowercase t) between God, Jesus and Christians. Jesus will explain this using the analogy of a vine. Let’s start out by pair the persons to the pieces of the analogy. God the Father is the gardener. God the Son, Jesus Christ, is the vine, and the Christians are the branches of the vine. It won’t be until later on the chapter that the connection between Christians and the branches are made, but the connections for God and Jesus are right there in the first verse of chapter 15. It’s also our last “I AM” statement in the book of John.

John 15:1-
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.”

As seen with some of the other “I AM” statements, the analogy is nothing new for the original Jewish audience. The Old Testament Jews knew themselves to be like a vine. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, even a Psalmist in Psalms called Israel a vine. But notice Jesus calls himself “the true vine.” I think there’s significance in that. If you ever get the chance, read through Isaiah. It’s a long one, so you’ll need a couple long sittings to do it. If you know a little bit about the book of Isaiah, you’ll know that there’s a debate between Jews and Christians about it. Jews will say that the Suffering Servant in Isaiah is Israel, while the Christians will say that the Suffering Servant in Isaiah is the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Well, I’m here to tell them both that they are both right. Isaiah starts out by saying that Israel is the Suffering Servant, but while they were good at the suffering part, they failed at the servant part because they sinned. So God would send the Messiah, who Christians know to be Jesus Christ, to succeed at the Servant part, just as much as the suffering (although I’m sure the suffering part wasn’t welcomed). Why do I mention this? I see the same explanation of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah to work for the vine in John 15. Israel was the vine, but it failed at being a vine, so God went to the true vine, Jesus Christ. Just as Jesus fulfilled the Suffering Servant for Israel, so Jesus also fulfills the Vine for Israel.

In John 15:2, the reader can see Jesus starts talking about fruit. By the end of the chapter, Jesus will say “fruit” eight times. Just as a vine and its branches are expected to produce fruit, so Jesus and His disciples are expected to produce fruit. Anyone can see Jesus produced fruit, but do His followers, the Christians, produce fruit? Well, what exactly is that fruit? If you are anything like me, you thought of Galatians 5:22,23, which is the Fruit of the Spirit. I think this would work because this passage is squished between two passages about the Holy Spirit. God the Father looks for Christians to produce those Fruit of the Spirit. If they do not, they are cut off from God. After all, they are not producing the proof that they are part of the vine. Therefore, they have no part in the vine, and are cut off. The branches that do produce fruit are then pruned. Pruning branches are important to any plant, whether it be a tree, bush or vine. In pruning, branches are cut back or completely cut off to allow the old branches, or new branches, to grow bigger, stronger and produce more fruit. Isn’t it interesting that some cutting back or cutting off is needed for true growth to happen? The Greeks didn’t really having a term for pruning, they just called it “cleaning,” as in “cleaning the vine.” This makes a perfect wordplay for verse. But the point I’m trying to get across is sometimes a little pruning, or cleaning, is necessary for our faith. Sometimes it might hurt, and sometimes it might seem damaging, but in the end, God will see us through and He’ll make us stronger through it.

In John 15:4, it may seem like Jesus is stating the obvious, but it has an important lesson. Plant branches apart from the plant, whether it be a tree, bush or vine, cannot produce fruit. The same is true for the Christian. The Christian cannot produce the Fruit of the Spirit that God the Father desires apart from Christ. So what should the Christian do? The Greek word John uses here is meno, which can be translated stay, remain, abide, or dwell. The Greek word appears 40 times in the Gospel, and 11 times in this chapter alone. What does it mean to “remain” in the terms of “remain in Christ?” There’s been a little debate. First, it can mean to believe in Jesus, as in accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Second, it can mean to continue believing in Jesus, like an on-going process. Third, it can mean practicing what you believe. As postmodern as it sounds, I like all these answers to be right, for when you put all these answers together, it really points back to the purpose of Gospel of John. First, John writes his Gospel to get the non-believers to believe in Jesus as Christ and God. Second, John writes his book to the get the believers to continue their faith in Jesus as Christ and God. Third, John writes John to get the believers to practice their beliefs by obeying God’s commands and Christ’s teachings. I hope by now you too have come to faith, have continued believing what you were taught, and now are getting disciplined to commandments of Jesus.

Going into verse 5, the Father takes a back seat and a passive role in the analogy. Now, the focus will be on the relationship between Jesus and the Christians. John 15:5 restates the “I AM” statement, but now puts it in light to Christians, not the Father.

John 15:5-
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Jesus is the vine, and Christians are the branches. Now there are two types of branches, or rather, two types of Christians. There are those who do remain in Jesus. They believe that Jesus is God, Man, Savior and Lord, they follow the commandments of God and the teachings of Jesus, and they persevere through all times to stay true in their on-going process of sanctification. These branches produce much fruit, as verse 5 tells us. The other branches, the ones that do not remain in the vine, are dead branches that wither away. What kind of people are they? These branches are not as easy to define as the good branches, for it has brought about debate. There are 3 main camps for this debate. First camp would say these are the Christians who have fell away from their faith and lost their salvation. The second camp says these are the Christians that lose their reward, because producing fruit is necessary for the reward, but they do not lose their salvation. The third camp states that these branches are “false branches,” or people who claim they are Christian, but really aren’t. This would include people who say the believe in Christian doctrine, but they do not follow through with the Christian practices. All camps have good proof, and thus all camps are good possibilities. Instead of arguing which one is right, let’s see if we can find commonalities that carry both. In all cases, like a branch apart from the vine is dead, so this Christian is spiritually dead. Just like a dead branch gets thrown into the fire, so the spiritually-dead Christian will face judgment (throughout the Bible, fire is used as a symbol of judgment). The ultimate plan is to produce fruit, which is the Father’s desire and gives the Father glory. Producing fruit is also the sign, or the proof, that we, as Christians, belong to Jesus, the Vine.

So what’s the key to bearing much fruit? What’s the key to remaining in Jesus? The answer is love. Jesus will spend verses 9 to 15 illustrating this love. To remain in Jesus is to remain in His love. What does John 15:9-17 tell us about the love of Jesus? First, the love of Jesus is the exact same love as God has. The Greek word is agape, which is an unconditional love that can only come from God. Jesus has passed on this love from His Father to His followers, and He expects us to pass on the same love. Second, this love seems to be strongly related to the commandments of God and of Jesus. The only way to remain in the love is to obey these commandments. From verses like these, I really believe the Law found in the Old Testament is a Law of Love. The purpose of the 10 commandments, and every law under it, is to show humankind how to love. All 613 Jewish laws can be summed up into The 10 Commandments. The 10 Commandments can be summed up into the 2 Greatest Commandments: “Love the Lord your God…” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And what are the two words both greatest commandments have in common? Love! To truly love God and others, we must obey the commandments. If we don’t obey the commandments, we cannot love. Once again, in verse 13, Jesus commands the disciples to love each other as Jesus loved them. Jesus becomes the example of love. Jesus loved everyone and kept the commandments, and Christians need to follow that lead. What’s the ultimate sign of love? Verse 13 tells the reader that the greatest love is when someone lays down his life for his friend. This verse has an eerie foreshadowing, as Jesus will demonstrate His love for mankind by laying down his life for his friends (see Romans 5:8). Thus, as seen in verse 14, Jesus reveals to his disciples that they are not only his followers, but his friends. They are now more than just servants, who are unaware of what the master is up to. They are now friends, intimate with their master. The grand conclusion is a line Jesus has been repeating over and over in His last discourses: love one another. If there anything Jesus wants them to get out of all His teachings, Jesus wants them to love. It will be love that will keep them genuine, and keep them from turning legalistic like the Jewish leaders of the day.

I’m going to stop here. I’m not going to move onto the rest of the chapter. Remember that the chapter numbers and verse numbers are not inspired by God, and thus they are not inerrant. While John’s numbering has been good for the most part, here I disagree. I think the chapter should have ended after verse 17, and verse 18 should have begun the new chapter. Verses 18 to 27 fit better with John 16 than John 15. I also like John 15 ending at 17 because that verse is the grand conclusion, as well as the thesis, for John 17. The greatest commandment Jesus gave His disciples is love. Love is what unites the trinity between God the Father, God the Son, and the Christians.

The Things I Have Learned Through The Many Years of Quizzing

There's a poem written by Robert Fulgham called "All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten." In this poem, the author argues that the life lessons he needed to learn he learned not when he graduated from high school or college, but rather in kindergarten. I remember in my freshman year of high school my English teacher read us the poem, and for a creative writing exercise, she has us write a poem called, "All I Really Need To Know I Learned in ___". The blank was an area of our lives of our own choosing in which we learned a lot of lessons. Naturally, the quizzer in me chose to make mine "All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Quizzing." My teacher said we needed only 10 (or at least 10), but I went up to 12. Since I wrote that in 9th grade, I've kept, and as the years passed, when I found a new "lesson" I learned, I added it. And before you know it, I had 25. So I would like to share with my fellow quizzers, for I bet some of these are true for them. Some are meant to be serious, and some are meant to be funny. Some are obvious, while others are inside jokes. Some are judgings and rulings. No matter what the case is, I hope you enjoy all 25...

1. "The King of Heaven," "The Lord of Heaven" and "The God of Heaven" are not the same people.
2. Moses had different staffs: the staff that turned into a snake, the staff that struck the Nile, Aaron's staff and Moses's staff (the only one interchangeable with "the staff of God").
3. Disciples are sometimes apostles, apostles are sometimes disciples
4. You must obey the ruling of the staff/authority, no matter how wrong, weird or ridiculous it sounds.
5. Don't think; just buzz.
6. Repeating an answer doesn't make it any more right
7. Just keep babbling; you'll eventually say something right/wrong
8. If you are split between a couple of possible answers, and you have a gut feeling learning towards one, go with the other. The gut feeling is always wrong.
9. With more years experience, comes less need to practice
10. If you are trying even the slightest to complete to goal (quizzing out, Top 50 Quizzers List, perfect quizzer, etc.), you are already trying too hard. Don't try, and you'll get there right away.
11. There is such thing as "cheering too loud."
12. There is such thing as having "too much fun" and having "not enough fun." Strive to be in between.
13. Flipping coins in a quiz match is having "too much fun" and is a bad way to make a decision.
14. Everything can be solved through Rock, Paper Scissors
15. There is a science to jinxing
16. The different names for bovine and swine
17. God and Moses always spoke in third person
18. The Bible is very repetitive
19. All liars go to hell
20. If you walk into a Burger King, you better come out with enough Burger King crown for everyone
21. Head gear, such as wigs and hats, block brain waves transmissions
22. Dark Chocolate improves memory, even by just sniffing it
23. Knowledge puffs up, but love is both puffy and poofy
24. God is a cheerful giver, Ha! Ha! Ha!
25. An idolater (pronounced "eye-doll-it-tore") is someone who worships idols. An idolater (pronounced "eye-dull-ate-or") is an imaginary part of a car that shifts the car into idle.