The Ironies of Jesus’ Trial

written by Dr. Bart D Erhman

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that fact that John’s Gospel has a very different portrayal of Jesus’ trial before Pilate than any of the other Gospels.   It is longer, more involved, and highly intriguing.

Unlike the other Gospels, it is not a short trial where Jesus says only two words (in Mark, Pilate asks Jesus if he is the king of the Jews and Jesus replies: “You say so” – in Greek SU LEGEIS).  There are numerous back and forths, including, at one point, Pilate’s famous question “What is truth?”

To make sense of the scene it is important to realize that John is going to have Jesus die on a different day from the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  In those earlier Gospels, the day before Jesus’ death his disciples ask him where he wants them to “prepare the Passover meal” (Mark 14:12).  He gives them instructions how and where to prepare the meal and they do so.  That evening (which, in Jewish reckoning, is the beginning of the next day) they eat the meal, after which Jesus is arrested.  He spends the night in jail and the next morning he is put on trial (on the day of Passover after the meal was eaten) and then crucified at 9:00 am

In John, however, Jesus …

In John, however, Jesus dies a day earlier, on the day of “Preparation for the Passover” (the day when the Passover meal was being prepared) rather than on the Passover day itself.  That is evident already at the beginning of the long passage of Jesus’ trial, found in John 18:28-19:16.   Jesus had been arrested the night before after a meal which is *not* referred to as a Passover meal.   After spending the night in Jewish custody, Jesus is taken from the house of the high priest to the residence of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate (a residence called the “praetorium”).

Jesus is sent inside the praetorium but the Jewish leaders and crowds stay outside of it, because they did not want “to be defiled” because they wanted to “eat the Passover.”  That is to say, the Passover meal is going to be that evening.  (It was not the evening *before*, as in the synoptics.)   The idea is that (for some unstated reason, which is much debated) if they entered into this gentile residence they would be made ritually impure, and would not be able to partake of the sacred meal that evening.  So they stay outside.

John’s Gospel sets it up this way because it heightens the tension, and makes for a more dramatic scene, and allows him to stress the full irony of the situation (in his eyes).

The tension and drama are created by the highly unusual way the trial is conducted.  Normally at a trial the defendant, the accusers, and the judge are in one place and the questioning of witnesses proceeds in the presence of all.  Not Jesus’ trial in John.   On the contrary, Jesus is inside, his Jewish accusers are outside, and the judge, Pilate, goes back and forth between them, in and out, a total of six times!   He is more like an errand boy than the ruler of Judea.

When he is inside he questions Jesus; when he is outside he speaks to the Jews trying to get them to punish Jesus themselves.  When they refuse he goes back inside to talk to Jesus and then he goes back outside to try again.  Read the passage for yourself and you’ll see him running back and forth.

Rather than saying just his two words, Jesus gives mini-speeches in this account:  see, for example, 18:33-38, where Pilate and Jesus have a memorable back-and-forth about what it means for Jesus to be a king:  “My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my wservants would fight, that I  might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not of this world…”   and so on.

Pilate three times tells the Jews that Jesus has not done anything wrong:  “I find no crime in him.”  But the Jewish leaders are insistent: he must be crucified.  Pilate is exasperated, “Take him yourselves and crucify him.”   The Jews refuse, saying they’re not allowed to do so (you would think Pilate would know that, since he was their ruler, but, well, in this narrative it appears to come as news to him.)

Pilate finally brings Jesus out to face his accusers and says his famous words “Behold your King.”  The Jews urge him to crucify him.  Pilate asks “Shall I crucify your king?” And the Jews notoriously reply “We have no king but Caesar.”  Pilate caves in and orders Jesus crucified.

This account is filled with pathos and irony.  Here I’ll just point out two particularly strong ironic elements.   They both have to do with the Passover meal that the Jews are going to eat that evening.

At the Passover meal, part of the celebration involved singing a hymn (one of the Psalms) to God as the great savior of Israel who delivered his people.   How ironic is that?  For John’s Gospel, it is Jesus himself who provides that salvation.  But the people who that evening are going to praise God for his salvation have rejected his salvation, and in fact, refuse to go into the Praetorium precisely so they can celebrate his salvation at the meal that evening!

So too, near the end of the trial, in John 19:14, we are told that the event took place on the “Day of Preparation for the Passover.”  That was the day when, starting after noon, the Jewish priests sacrificed the Passover lambs that would be eaten that evening at the Passover meal.   Jesus is condemned on that day, and John tells us that he was crucified not at 9:00 in the morning but after noon – in other words, on the same day and at the same hour as the Passover lambs.

And why at that time?   For an obvious reason.  In John’s Gospel Jesus himself is the Passover lamb.  He is identified that way at the very beginning of the Gospel, by John the Baptist, who, when first he sees him, declares “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (1:29).

Since John’s Gospel understands that Jesus’ death brings salvation, and that he himself is the sacrificial lamb, it indicates that Jesus’ was sacrificed exactly when the Passover lambs were sacrificed.

And who sacrifices the lambs?  The Jewish priests.  Who insisted on Jesus’ death?  The Jewish priests.  What would these priests do that evening?  Celebrate the Passover in commemoration of God’s great act of salvation at the Exodus in the days of Moses.  Why don’t they want to go into the praetorium? Because they’d be defiled and not be able to partake of the Passover and eat the Passover lamb.  But who really is the Passover lamb?  Jesus himself, whom they order killed.

The Jews are desperate to eat the Passover lamb, and they don’t recognize who the Passover lamb actually is.

This is a lesson taught only in John’s Gospel, and he stresses the full irony of the situation.  “The Jews” (as John calls Jesus’ opponents) have rejected precisely the salvation that the God they *think* they worship has provided.  By rejecting Jesus they have rejected their own Passover lamb.