4 Pilate then went out again, and said to them, “Behold, I am bringing Him out to you, that you may know that I find no fault in Him.” 5 Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, “Behold the Man!” 6 Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “You take Him and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him.” 7 The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God.”
Pilate again went out of the Praetorium to address the Jews with a second verdict about Jesus.
19:4
Pilate then went out again, and said to them,
Pilate again attempted appease the crowd.
“Behold, I am bringing Him out to you, that you may know that I find no fault in Him.”
Pilate here formally asserted his conclusion that he found “no fault” in Jesus.
19:5
Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.
Jesus appeared publicly as a bloody figure after His beating. He came out with bruises, lacerations, and welts on His back (Is 53:5). He now wore a crown of thorns and a purple robe. The Jewish leaders took great delight to see this figure.
And Pilate said to them, “Behold the Man!”
“Behold the Man” is a sarcastic or ironic statement by Pilate about Jesus. Our Lord was a pathetic figure at this point. The governor had hoped that this would placate the crowd; however, this evoked no sympathy from the mob. They were not satisfied with mere torture of Jesus; they wanted His death by crucifixion.
19:6
Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw Him,
The “chief priests and officers” were the leadership of the crowd.
they cried out, saying, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”
Jewish leadership’s hatred of Jesus was apparent by their demand to kill Jesus. Their attitude was bloodthirsty. With mob mentality they shouted for His death. Crucifixion was a cruel death reserved for criminals or revolutionaries by the Roman Empire. The Jews wanted Him to go through as much suffering as possible.
Pilate said to them, “You take Him and crucify Him,
Pilate at first refused to execute Jesus because he could not find a legal reason for doing so. Now he sarcastically gave the Jews permission to crucify Him. However, the Jews did not have authority to crucify anyone.
for I find no fault in Him.”
This is the third declaration by Pilate of Jesus’ innocence (Jn 18:38; 19:4, 6). Although Jesus was without guilt from the stance of human government, it was God’s decision to lay on Him the guilt and iniquity of us all (Is 58:6,8).
19:7
The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to our law He ought to die,
Realizing that Pilate was making attempts to release Jesus, the Jews made an appeal to their Scripture. They finally brought out the true reason they wanted Him killed. The “law” here may refer to Leviticus 24:16. The charge of blasphemy called forth a death sentence. There was no civil law against blasphemy, so Pilate had to make a decision to crucify Jesus based on something outside Roman law.
because He made Himself the Son of God.”
The Jews disclosed the real reason why they wanted Jesus crucified. In John 10:33 they wanted to kill Jesus because He claimed to be God. The phrase “Son of God” was a claim of deity in their mind (Jn 5:18).
PRINCIPLE:
There is a divine purpose behind the death of Christ.
APPLICATION:
Although there is responsibility in man for the death of Christ, God the Father held ultimate responsibility for it (Ac 4:27-28). It was something that needed to be done because there was a divine purpose behind it all. Jesus paid the price for our transgression against God.
One of the main arguments of the gospel of John is the deity of Christ. Verse 7 points to this as one of the reasons for His crucifixion. The real issue for putting Him to death was the denial of His deity. It was His claim that agitated them.
