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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - John 18:28 - 18:28
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Joh 18:28-40. Jesus before Pilate.
Note. - Our Evangelist, having given the interview with Annas, omitted by the other Evangelists, here omits the trial and condemnation before Caiaphas, which the others had recorded. (See on Mar 14:53-65). [The notes broken off there at Mar 14:54 are here concluded].
Mar 14:53-65 :
Mar 14:61 :
The high priest asked Him, Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the blessed? - Matthew says the high priest put Him upon solemn oath, saying, “I adjure Thee by the living God that Thou tell us whether Thou be the Christ, the Son of God” (Mat 26:63). This rendered an answer by our Lord legally necessary (Lev 5:1).
Accordingly, Mar 14:62 :
Jesus said, I am - “Thou hast said” (Mat 26:64). In Luk 22:67, Luk 22:68, some other words are given, “If I tell you, ye will not believe; and if I also ask you, ye will not answer Me, nor let Me go.” This seems to have been uttered before giving His direct answer, as a calm remonstrance and dignified protest against the prejudgment of His case and the unfairness of their mode of procedure.
and ye shall see the Son of man, etc. - This concluding part of our Lord’s answer is given somewhat more fully by Matthew and Luke. “Nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter [rather, ‘From henceforth’] shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Mat 26:64; Luk 22:69). - that is, I know the scorn with which ye are ready to meet such an avowal: To your eyes, which are but eyes of flesh, there stands at this bar only a mortal like yourselves, and He at the mercy of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities: “Nevertheless,” a day is coming when ye shall see another sight: Those eyes, which now gaze on Me with proud disdain, shall see this very prisoner at the right hand of the Majesty on high, and coming in the clouds of heaven: Then shall the judged One be revealed as the Judge, and His judges in this chamber appear at His august tribunal; then shall the unrighteous judges be impartially judged; and while they are wishing that they had never been born, He for whom they now watch as their Victim shall be greeted with the hallelujahs of heaven, and the welcome of Him that sitteth upon the throne!
Mar 14:63, Mar 14:64 :
Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy - “of his own mouth” (Luk 22:71); an affectation of religious horror.
What think ye? - “Say, what verdict would ye pronounce.”
They all condemned Him to be guilty of death - of a capital crime. (See Lev 24:16).
Mar 14:65 :
And some began to spit on Him - “Then did they spit in His face” (Mat 26:67). See Isa 50:6.
And to cover His face, and to buffet Him, and to say unto Him, Prophesy - or, “divine,” “unto us, Thou Christ, who is he that smote Thee?” The sarcasm in styling Him the Christ, and as such demanding of Him the perpetrator of the blows inflicted upon Him, was in them as infamous as to Him it was stinging.
and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands - “And many other things blasphemously spake they against him” (Luk 22:65). This general statement is important, as showing that virulent and varied as were the recorded affronts put upon Him, they are but a small specimen of what He endured on that black occasion.
Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas to the hall of judgment - but not till “in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council against Him to put Him to death, and bound Him” (Mat 27:1; and see Mar 15:1). The word here rendered “hall of judgment” is from the Latin, and denotes “the palace of the governor of a Roman province.”
they themselves went not into the judgment hall lest they should be defiled - by contact with ceremonially unclean Gentiles.
but that they might eat the passover - If this refer to the principal part of the festival, the eating of the lamb, the question is, how our Lord and His disciples came to eat it the night before; and, as it was an evening meal, how ceremonial defilement contracted in the morning would unfit them for partaking of it, as after six o’clock it was reckoned a new day. These are questions which have occasioned immense research and learned treatises. But as the usages of the Jews appear to have somewhat varied at different times, and our present knowledge of them is not sufficient to clear up all difficulties, they are among the not very important questions which probably will never be entirely solved.