CAIAPHAS BLASPHEMES BEFORE PILATE

MATTHEW 27:11–26; MARK 15:1–15; LUKE 23:1–25; JOHN 18:29–19:16

Following the verdict of Caiaphas, the next move was to secure Jesus’s execution. Determining to avoid potential religious and political problems that would result from executing Jesus themselves (cf. John 18:28), the whole court of twenty-three Sanhedrin members delivered Jesus into the hands of the Roman authorities. This group of corrupt Temple leaders told Pilate, the Roman military governor, that Jesus had incited uprisings, discouraged payment of taxes to Caesar, and boldly spoken of himself as a king (Luke 23:2, 5). The last of the charges was the most serious because sedition against the emperor of Rome was a capital crime.

Pilate had assumed his role as military governor and civil judge (procurator) of Judea in AD 26 and held it until he was banished in AD 36. During most of his days in office, Pilate lived in Caesarea Maritima.29 But he moved to Jerusalem during the winter months, from Hanukkah through the high holiday of Passover—festivals that inspired Jewish independence. While in Jerusalem, it is most likely that he lived in the palace Herod the Great had built on the western ridge of Jerusalem. The courtyard of that palace may well be the Stone Pavement that became the setting for Jesus’s trial (John 19:13).30

As Jesus stood on that pavement, he could see Rome because wherever Pilate went, the authority and power of Rome went with him. As an imperial procurator, Pilate was empowered to hear evidence and render verdicts that could only be overturned by the emperor himself.31 Pilate knew the power of his position as he upbraided Jesus for not responding to him. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” (John 19:10).

Honorary inscription from Pontius Pilate, dedicated to the emperor Tiberius.
© Dr. James C. Martin. The Israel Museum.

Model of the Herodian palace, where Jesus was taken to Pilate.

Although it was true Pilate had the power of Rome, on numerous previous occasions his cultural insensitivity and heartless cruelty had brought him perilously close to removal from office.32 As a result of certain actions of Pilate, the Jerusalem leadership had even threatened to send an embassy to Emperor Tiberius to protest. According to Philo,

It was this final point that particularly exasperated Pilate, for he feared that if they actually sent an embassy, they would also expose the rest of his conduct as governor by stating in full the briberies, insults, robberies, outrages and wanton injuries, executions without trial, and ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty. So with all his vindictiveness and furious temper, he was in a difficult position.33

Model of the Antonia Fortress (possibly the place of Rome’s scourging of Jesus) with the Temple in the background.

Caiaphas subsequently blasphemed before Pilate for a reason. Given Pilate’s weak standing with his superior, Pilate wanted to make sure he had sufficient justification to appease Tiberius if a riot occurred as a result of Jesus’s execution. He first attempted to dodge the trial by freeing Jesus according to his custom of releasing a prisoner during the feast (Matt. 27:15–18) and then by shuffling the Galilean off to the tetrarch who controlled Galilee, Herod Antipas (Luke 23:5–12). When Pilate appeared to be on the brink of releasing Jesus, he was threatened that his actions would be reported to Rome (John 19:12). So what was Pilate waiting for? Perhaps he was waiting for Caiaphas and the Temple leadership to offer him something with which he could justify himself if the death of Jesus caused a riot. The moment came when Caiaphas and the chief priests, in order to influence Pilate to do the deed, blasphemed by claiming, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). With such a proclamation, the Temple leadership had repudiated the God of Israel. Now if there was a riot, Pilate could explain to the emperor that the riot was worth it, for the corrupt priestly families of Sadducees agreed to reject the Creator of the universe as God and King and go to direct imperial worship in exchange for Pilate doing the deed.

Pilate’s Jerusalem residence