38 After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in Him. 39 But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” 40 They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber.
1 Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged Him. 2 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head and arrayed Him in a purple robe. 3 They came up to Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck Him with their hands. 4 Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing Him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in Him.” 5 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” 6 When the chief priests and the officers saw Him, they cried out, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him.”
In Exodus 12, God gave Moses and Aaron detailed instructions on how the Passover was to be observed. This was just before the exodus from Egyptian captivity, and in verse 5 the Lord said that the sacrificial lamb “shall be without blemish.” Jesus Christ, and His sacrificial death on the eve of Passover some 1400 years later was the fulfilment of the Passover. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”
Just as the Israelites escaped slavery to the Egyptians, so do those who put their faith in the atoning death of Jesus escape slavery to sin.
It was essential that the true Passover lamb, the Lamb of God, must be without sin. Even Judas Iscariot knew that Jesus was sinless, as he confessed just before taking his own life. “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” (Matthew 27:4). Three times, in John 18:38, 19:4 and 19:6, Pilate said, “I find no guilt in Him.”
James Montgomery Boice wrote, “It is as one uncondemned and, in fact, declared to be blameless that Christ goes to Calvary. It is as God’s blameless Lamb that Jesus dies for the sin of this world.”
The long-awaited Messiah came, but as John wrote in the beginning of his Gospel, He was rejected by His own people. “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him.” (John 1:9-11)
Why was Christ rejected then, and why is He still rejected today? The answer is simple. Sinful man hates God’s holiness and will do anything to rid himself of the light of Christ. Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:19-20, “The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”
The perfect holiness of God exposes and shames us, and this explains why Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God was and is rejected and despised.
Pilate has now questioned Jesus, and was clearly convinced that He was not guilty of the false charges the Jewish leaders accused Him of, but instead of releasing Him as he should, Pilate asked the crowd, “You have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” (John 18:39)
As we saw last week, Pilate tried to avoid making a decision about what to do about Jesus. He knew Jesus was innocent, and was looking for a way to have Him released, so now he put the question to the crowd. He knew the hatred the Pharisees had for Jesus, but he would have been aware of just how popular Jesus was with the average man in the street. Just a few days earlier, Jesus had been welcomed into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, but again Pilate underestimated the determination of the Pharisees. Mark 15:11 says, “The chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead.” This caught Pilate completely by surprise.
John, in verse 40 identified Barabbas as a robber, but Luke 23:19 goes into more detail of Barabbas’ character. He was “a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder.”
Barabbas was a nasty piece of work, and he had tried to lead one of many revolutions against the Romans, so he was imprisoned and awaiting execution by crucifixion. As far as Rome was concerned, Barabbas was a terrorist, and he deserved to die. He was sitting on death row, and it just a matter of time before he would be put to death.
In an effort to try and keep the peace with the Jews, it had become a tradition each year at the Passover for the Roman procurator to grant one of the Jews held in prison a full pardon. As far as Pilate was concerned, Jesus was the obvious candidate this year. It made perfect sense to him that the people would ask for Jesus to be released. Barabbas was the last person Pilate wanted to set free, but his plan backfired spectacularly when the crowd demanded that Barabbas be released instead.
The reason is that Barabbas was the kind of saviour that the Jews had wanted Jesus to be. They wanted a political and military deliverer from Roman rule, something Barabbas had already tried to be. At least he showed some ambition, unlike Jesus who rode into Jerusalem on a humble donkey, so it’s not that surprising the crowd chose Barabbas over Jesus.
Jesus did not come into the world to overthrow Rome with a violent uprising, but to defeat the guilt and power of sin. In choosing Barabbas over Jesus, the people chose salvation by the sword over salvation by the cross. J. C. Ryle wrote, “They publicly declared that they liked a robber and a murderer better than Christ.”
Again we see the hypocrisy of the religious elite as they incited the crowd to demand the release of a man who was guilty of the very crimes they had charged Jesus with. Barabbas was guilty of these things, while Jesus was not, but they didn’t care.
Later on, in Acts 3, Peter and John healed a lame man, and the people and religious leaders demanded to know how they had performed such a miracle, and Peter levelled this withering charge at them: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.” (Acts 3:12-15)
However, we must always bear in mind that all of this was in accordance with the will of God. Peter continued in verses 17 and 18 by saying, “I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He thus fulfilled.”
What this means is that the crowd’s rejection of Jesus involved not only the will of sinful men, but also the will of God for His sacrificial Lamb.
The entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament points directly to the cross. It is when we read the Old Testament through the lens as it were, of the New Testament, that we are able to make sense of the Old Testament sacrifices.
Leviticus 16:21-22 says, “Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.” This was the scapegoat, which would be removed from the camp and released into the wilderness, as it symbolically carried the sins of the people away.
Isaiah 53 prophesied that Jesus would be “numbered with the transgressors, bearing the sin of many.” Charles Spurgeon wrote about the link between the crowd’s rejection of Jesus and the will of God. “Christ, as He stood covered with His people’s sins, had more sin laid upon Him than that which rested upon Barabbas. Holy, harmless, and undefiled is Christ Jesus, but He takes the whole load of His people’s guilt upon Himself by imputation, and as God the Father looks upon Him, He sees more guilt lying upon the Saviour than even upon this atrocious sinner, Barabbas.”
Pilate literally had the power of life and death, and he had the authority to overrule the demands of the crowd, but as we’ve seen, he lacked the courage to do what was right, so as 19:1 tells us, he had Jesus flogged, hoping against hope that this would satisfy the bloodlust of the people.
The Roman practice of flogging was a particularly cruel form of punishment, often meted out before the condemned was crucified, and in many cases the victims didn’t even make it to the cross, as they died from the severe flogging they received.
As if the flogging of Jesus wasn’t enough, the Roman soldiers added to His humiliation. “The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head and arrayed Him in a purple robe. They came up to Him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ and struck Him with their hands.” (John 19:2–3)
Mark adds that the soldiers also spat on Jesus and used a reed that they had put in His hands as a mock sceptre to beat Him on the crown of thorns, adding to His agony.
What was it that caused these soldiers to treat Jesus so savagely, knowing that He was about to die anyway? The easy answer is that the Romans despised the Jews, and since Jesus was called their king, they wanted to show their contempt for not only the Jewish people, but the religion of Judaism as a whole.
But there was a deeper reason for all of this senseless torture, which gives us a haunting glimpse of the evil which lies within every human heart. These men were face to face with the King of Glory, and they hated Him for it. On the head which was destined to wear heaven’s crown of glory, sinful mankind pressed a torturous crown of unbelieving contempt, as they mercilessly mocked Him, which continues in our sinful world today.
The mocking of the soldiers condemned not only themselves, but the entire human race. Mark Johnston of Banner of Truth Ministries wrote about “That sobering theme that runs throughout this Gospel: ‘People loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.’ This is the verdict of God. This is human nature as it really is. Barbarous mankind ridicules divine humility; rebel mankind mocks Christ’s reign as King of kings. Though Jesus is no longer physically present to abuse, the spirit of these Roman soldiers continues to raise its fist against Him, and often raises its malice against His disciples still in the world.”
Make no mistake. This sinful world which hates the name of Jesus Christ, continues to mock and despise Him at every opportunity.
There is an important phrase in the Apostles’ Creed which reminds us of the physical torture Jesus underwent as part of His work of redemption for us: “He suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Not only was He wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities as Isaiah writes in chapter 53, but He also bore the shame and reproach that our sins deserve. J. C. Ryle wrote, “Our Lord was clothed with a robe of shame and contempt, that we might be clothed with a spotless garment of righteousness, and stand in white robes before the throne of God.”
Pilate was still hoping that the crowd would be satisfied, and that Jesus could be released. After the soldiers had beaten and humiliated Him, Pilate said to the crowd, “See, I am bringing Him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in Him.” Verse 5 says, “Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.” Pilate then said, ‘Behold the man!’”
Some English translations say, “Here is the man,” while the ESV and NKJV say, “Behold the man!”
This was Pilate’s final attempt to have Jesus set free. What the people saw before them was a bleeding, beaten and humiliated man. Surely, at last, they would change their minds now?
Pilate had Jesus flogged, hoping that the crowd would be satisfied that this itinerant preacher who claimed to be equal to God would, in the eyes of the people at least, finally learn His lesson, but this plan of Pilate’s also failed. Eventually he just gave up, saying in verse 6, “Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him.”
When Pilate said, “Behold the man,” what he meant was, “Just look at this pitiful figure. Haven’t you had enough?” John MacArthur writes, “Pilate dramatically presented Jesus after His torturous treatment by the soldiers. Jesus would have been swollen, bruised, and bleeding. Pilate displayed Jesus as a beaten and pathetic figure hoping to gain the people’s choice of Jesus for release. Pilate’s phrase is filled with sarcasm since He was attempting to impress upon the Jewish authorities that Jesus was not the dangerous man that they had made Him out to be.”
What Pilate did not know was that the challenge to behold the man is something we all have to face. Those three simple words echo down through the ages. We have to behold the man Jesus Christ, and decide if He really is who He claimed to be.
The Messiah stood before His own people, and despite the fact that they all knew He was innocent of any of the charges brought against Him, they cried out, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”
They just didn’t get it. They were so blinded by their sin and their love of the darkness as Jesus told Nicodemus, that they simply failed to make the connection between all of the Old Testament prophecies and the man who now stood before them. This was the promised and longed-for Messiah, but they just did not get it. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:8, “If they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
Pilate’s challenge to “Behold the man!” calls us all to look at Jesus Christ, the sin-bearing Saviour.
More than 500 years earlier, when the returning exiles were rebuilding the temple, the prophet Zechariah was told by God to make a crown woven with silver and gold, and to place it on the head of the high priest Joshua. It is no coincidence that the Hebrew name Joshua in Greek is Jesus. “Take from them silver and gold, and make a crown, and set it on the head of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. And say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for He shall branch out from His place, and He shall build the temple of the Lord. It is He who shall build the temple of the Lord and shall bear royal honour, and shall sit and rule on His throne. And there shall be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.’” (Zechariah 6:11-13)
Zechariah would’ve known that what he was instructed to do was a symbol of the promised Messiah. Maybe he was hoping this would happen in his lifetime, as he cried out, “Behold, the man.”
So it was probably just as well that Zechariah was spared the horror of seeing the Messiah crowned with thorns instead of silver and gold, as the very people He came to save bayed for His blood. Pilate, just as Zechariah, cried, “Behold the man!” and the dreadful response was, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”
And yet, in this scene of unspeakable injustice and evil, we see the glory of the Gospel of Christ. It’s the paradox of the cross once more. God was not rebuilding a temple made of stones, but instead He was building His true temple, where we would be able to meet with God in the person and work of His sin-cursed Son.
The only hope we have of being reconciled to a holy God is through the Cross of Calvary. Because of Jesus’ suffering and death, we are offered grace and forgiveness. Zechariah made a crown of silver and gold for his earthly priest, but incredibly, the crown of thorns worn by Jesus is infinitely more glorious and precious.
Behold the Man, behold the Lamb, who ministers peace between a holy God and a guilty world.
And what about Barabbas? He makes a brief cameo appearance in the Bible, and we never hear from him again. We can only speculate about what he made of all this. He was awaiting his execution remember, so it’s safe to assume that his heart sank as the Roman guards fetched him from his prison cell and marched him off to almost certain death, so I wonder what went through his mind when he saw this strange man wearing a crown of thorns and a purple robe carrying a cross to Golgotha?
Something didn’t quite fit. It was meant to be Barabbas making his final journey to the cross. We don’t know for certain, but he must have asked some people just what was going on. Why had his chains and shackles been removed, and why was the crowd calling for Jesus’ death instead of his?
At what point did it finally dawn on Barabbas, that Jesus was dying in his place? And what, if any changes did Jesus’ death in his place make? Did he follow Jesus to Golgotha, and did he watch this innocent man dying instead of him? Did he come to an understanding of the grace of God and become a disciple of Christ? We just don’t have the answers to those questions.
But Barabbas did know that Jesus died instead of him, because he deserved to die, but was given his freedom instead. It is only Barabbas who can say that Jesus took his physical place on the cross, but in terms of God’s holy wrath and judgment, all who believe in Jesus Christ are able to say with Barabbas, “Jesus died in my place.”
Donald Grey Barnhouse wrote, “It was I who deserved to die. It was I who deserved that the wrath of God should be poured upon me. He was delivered up for my offences. He was handed over to judgment because of my sins. This is why we speak of the substitutionary atonement. Christ was my substitute. He was satisfying the debt of divine justice and holiness.”
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
This is what is known as the double imputation which took place at the cross. Jesus bore our sin, and in exchange we bear His righteousness, which makes it possible for us to be in the presence of God for all eternity. Jesus died so that we can live. Jesus was bound in the curse of sin so that we sinners might be set free.
Like Barabbas waiting in his cell, hearing his name being called, every one of us will be summoned by name to appear at the great tribunal of God’s final judgment. And if Jesus is not standing next to you as your advocate, having died in your place, you will face the judgment of God alone, and you will have nothing to say. You will have no defence to offer.
On that great and fearful day, Jesus will be wearing His crown of glory, enthroned as the Judge over all, and all who refused Him in this life will be condemned forever.
Behold the Man. Have you despised and blasphemed the name of Christ? We all have. We are all guilty of cosmic treason against the Holy God who created us, and we all deserve eternal condemnation, but there is good news. The Father sent the Son to die for you. Look to Christ. Behold the Man. Admit your guilt, repent and believe, and you will be saved.
Homegroup Study Notes
Read John 18:38-40
How does Barabbas represent us?
We are not told what Barabbas made of all of this, but what do you think might have been going through his mind as Jesus died instead of him?
How does Jesus’ death instead of Barabbas illustrate the Gospel?
Read John 19:1-6
Why, if Pilate was convinced Jesus was innocent, did he have Him flogged?
How does the mocking of Jesus by the Roman soldiers continue in the non-believing world today?
Depending on which Bible translation you use, Pilate says in verse 5, “Behold the man,” or “Here is the man.”
How does this challenge apply to each of us, and what does it really mean for us to “behold the man Jesus Christ?”