Like most honest people who have reached a position of responsible judicial authority, Pilate goes straight to the key issue. Is Jesus a “king”? If so he is a threat to the 60-year-old Roman Empire. When he states to Jesus that he is a “king”, Jesus asks if it is he, Pilate, or others that had made that decision.
Pilate answered, “Perhaps I myself am a Judean? Your nation and the lead priests gave you over to me. What did you do?”
Pilate replies that he could personally have decided that only if he himself was Judean. It is Jesus’ own “nation” and “the chief priests” who have given him over to crucifixion. “What have you done” for that to be the case, he then asks.
Jesus answered, “My own kingdom is not from this world. If my own kingdom was from this world, my officials were fighting in order that I may not be given over to the Judeans. In fact right now this my own kingdom is not from here.” So Pilate said to him, “So then you are a king.”
What Jesus has done is to come into this world from another kingdom of his own. He tells Pilate about his “kingdom”. It’s not of this world as shown by the fact that no-one of this world will try to save him from death. In fact, it’s not “from here”. Pilate spots Jesus’ own claim to kingship and questions it.
Jesus answered, “You yourself state that I am a king. Into this I was born, and into this I have come into the world in order that I may testify to the truth. Everyone being from the truth hears my voice.”
Jesus makes known yet more to Pilate. He says he “was born” into his kingdom and “came into this world” so that he might give unequivocal testimony about the truth of how different is his not-of-this-world kingdom.
Here is a righteous and totally altruistic king. He will testify to that by allowing himself to be crucified so that he may forgive those who kill him. Those “from the truth” will hear his voice. Others will prefer their own self-seeking truth.
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