John 19:15

19:1-18 Little did Pilate think with what holy regard these sufferings of Christ would, in after-ages, be thought upon and spoken of by the best and greatest of men. Our Lord Jesus came forth, willing to be exposed to their scorn. It is good for every one with faith, to behold Christ Jesus in his sufferings. Behold him, and love him; be still looking unto Jesus. Did their hatred sharpen their endeavours against him? and shall not our love for him quicken our endeavours for him and his kingdom? Pilate seems to have thought that Jesus might be some person above the common order. Even natural conscience makes men afraid of being found fighting against God. As our Lord suffered for the sins both of Jews and Gentiles, it was a special part of the counsel of Divine Wisdom, that the Jews should first purpose his death, and the Gentiles carry that purpose into effect. Had not Christ been thus rejected of men, we had been for ever rejected of God. Now was the Son of man delivered into the hands of wicked and unreasonable men. He was led forth for us, that we might escape. He was nailed to the cross, as a Sacrifice bound to the altar. The Scripture was fulfilled; he did not die at the altar among the sacrifices, but among criminals sacrificed to public justice. And now let us pause, and with faith look upon Jesus. Was ever sorrow like unto his sorrow? See him bleeding, see him dying, see him and love him! love him, and live to him!

John 19:15 . They at once shouted, Ἆρον , ἆρον , σταύρωσον αὐτόν . To this Pilate could offer only the feeble opposition of more sarcasm, Τὸν βασιλέα ὑμῶν σταυρώσω ; where, of course, the emphasis is on the first words, John with his artistic perception exhibits their final rejection of Christ in the form in which it appeared as a reckless renunciation of all their national liberties and hopes: Οὐκ ἔχομεν βασιλέα εἰ μὴ Καίσαρα . Even yet Pilate will take no active part, but hands Jesus over to the Sanhedrists with the requisite authorisation; παρέδωκεν , used in a semi-technical sense, cf. Plut., Dem. , xiv. 4, and the passages cited in Holden’s note.

They (οἱ) The best texts read ἐκεῖνοι, those (people). The pronoun of remote reference isolates and sharply distinguishes them from Jesus. See on John 13:27. Away with him (ἆρον) Literally, take away. We have no king but Caesar These words, uttered by the chief priests, are very significant. These chief representatives of the theocratic government of Israel thus formally and expressly renounce it, and declare their allegiance to a temporal and pagan power. This utterance is "the formal abdication of the Messianic hope."

The more Pilate sought to quiet them, the more they rage, contrary to all dictates of reason; when God hath determined a thing, all things shall concur to bring it about. Pilate mocks them when he saith, Shall I crucify your King? Yet so fierce was their malice against Christ, that to compel the governor to condemn him, (though there were not a people under heaven more zealous for their liberties, nor more impatient of a foreign yoke), they cry out, We have no king but Caesar; that is, the Roman emperor, who had conquered them.

John 19:15 . Ἀπεκρίθησαν , answered ) And yet they would have gladly set aside Cæsar, if they could. They deny Jesus to such a degree as to deny the Christ altogether: Acts 17:7 , The Jews in Thessalonica say against Jason, etc., “These all do contrary to the decrees of Cæsar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.”

15 . But they ] The true text gives. They therefore , with the pronoun of opposition ( ekeinoi ) in harmony with their cry. They will have nothing to do with such a king. Shall I ] Or, must I . There is a strong emphasis on ‘King,’ which stands first in the original. Pilate begins ( John 18:33 ) and ends with the same idea, the one dangerous item in the indictment, the claim of Jesus to be King of the Jews. The chief priests ] This depth of degradation was reserved for them. “The official organs of the theocracy themselves proclaim that they have abandoned the faith by which the nation had lived.” Sooner than acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah they proclaim that a heathen Emperor is their King. And their baseness is at once followed by Pilate’s: sooner than meet a dangerous charge he condemns the innocent to death.

(15) But they cried out . . . —Better, they cried out therefore . . . They feel the sting of Pilate’s irony, therefore cry the more passionately, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him.” Shall I crucify your King?—In the order of the Greek words “your King” comes emphatically first, “Your King—shall I crucify Him?” The taunt is uttered in its bitterest form. We have no king but Cæsar.—They are driven by Pilate’s taunt, and by their hatred of Jesus, to a denial of their own highest hopes. They who gloried in the Theocracy, and hoped for a temporal Messianic reign, which should free them from Roman bondage; they who boasted that they “were never in bondage to any man” (John 8:33); they who were “chief priests” of the Jews, confess that Cæsar is their only king. The words were doubtless meant, as those in John 19:12, to drive Pilate to comply with their wishes, under the dread of an accusation at Rome. They had this effect.

John 19:15-16 . The bitterness is still further embittered. To the impetuous clamour which demands crucifixion, the question of Pilate: your king shall I crucify? is only the feeble echo of ἴδε ὁ βασ . ὑμ ., whereupon, with the decisive οὐκ ἔχομεν βασιλέα , κ . τ . λ ., although it perfidiously denied the sense of the hierarchy, the again awakened fear of the emperor at last completely disarms the procurator, so that now then ( τότε οὖν ) the tragic and ignominious final result of his judicial action comes out: Χριστὸν ἑκὼν ἀέκων ἀδίκῳ παρέδωκεν ὀλέθρῳ , Nonnus. αὐτοῖς ] to the chief priests , John 19:15 . To these Jesus was given over , and that, as a matter of fact, not merely by the sentence of itself (Hengstenberg), that He might be crucified under their direction by Roman soldiers ( John 19:23 , comp. Matthew 27:26-27 ). Comp. John 8:28 ; Acts 2:23 ; Acts 3:15 . παρέδ . does not signify to yield to their desire (Grotius, B. Crusius, Baeumlein). On crucifixion in general, see on Matthew 27:35 .

Verses 15, 16. - They on the other hand therefore yelled out, Away with him! away with (him)! Crucify him ! The aorists, α΅ρον σταύρωσον , imply the haste and impatience which they manifest to have done with the conflict; and Pilate, eager to thrust another envenomed dagger into the heart of their pride, and knowing that to call this Man whom he had made vile in their eyes their "KING," and to crucify One to whom such a title could be given would be gall and wormwood to them, cried, with flashing anger, Shall I crucify your King ? This wrung forth from them a cry which expressed the uttermost and basest abandonment of all their proud boasts, a heartless and fateful acknowledgment of their servility and dependence. The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar ! Our Messianic hope is dead, our national independence is at an end, our witness as a people to truth, our listening to the voice which would have gathered us together, are over. As before they had shouted, "Not this Man, but Barabbas!" so now, "Not the Lord of glory, but the damon lord of Rome; not this King of kings, but Tiberius Augustus et Dominus sacratissimus noster." In renouncing Christ by the lips of their chief priests, they put themselves under the power of the prince of this world, and terribly they answered for their crime. "They elected Caesar to be their king; by Caesar they were destroyed" (Lampe).