Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 19:15
But they cried out, Away with [him,] away with [him,] crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
15. But they ] The true text gives. They therefore, with the pronoun of opposition ( ekeinoi) in harmony with their cry. They will have nothing to do with such a king.
Shall I ] Or, must I. There is a strong emphasis on ‘King,’ which stands first in the original. Pilate begins (Joh 18:33) and ends with the same idea, the one dangerous item in the indictment, the claim of Jesus to be King of the Jews.
The chief priests ] This depth of degradation was reserved for them. “The official organs of the theocracy themselves proclaim that they have abandoned the faith by which the nation had lived.” Sooner than acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah they proclaim that a heathen Emperor is their King. And their baseness is at once followed by Pilate’s: sooner than meet a dangerous charge he condemns the innocent to death.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Joh 19:15
But they cried out Crucify Him.
–As the Crucify Him! falls upon our ears, it is simply the cry of an excited mob, instigated by the chief priests and elders. It falls painfully upon our Christian, and even upon our civilized, ears. We do not like to see human nature wrought up to such a pitch of frenzy. And if He whose cruel execution is thus demanded is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, then this cry pierces our very souls. But let us, while we gather around the cross, close our outward ear and hear with the ear of faith. Then other voices will reach us, and, though they utter the very same sentence, it will sound very differently and produce a far different impression. We hear a voice
I. FROM THE DIVINE SIDE.
1. From the throne of God. Let Him be crucified is the decree of the Almighty, the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. This shedding of the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world. We cannot discern the point at which Gods sovereignty and mans free agency meet: we know that they were without excuse who nailed the Redeemer to the tree; but underlying all, overruling all, accomplishing all, is the Divine purpose. Through that guilty act of man there was wrought a mysterious bat most real purpose of Divine love. God so loved the world, &c. We shall never know at what a cost nor understand the terrible strain upon the heart of the infinite Father. But though there entered into His ear that deepest wail of sorrow, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? He only answered by His silence–Let Him be crucified. It was a terrible price to pay, but only thus can sin be taken away and man be saved from everlasting death.
2. From the cross itself. Christ had prayed a little before that if it were possible for human salvation to be secured in any other way He might be spared. But not otherwise. It was for this purpose He had taken human nature upon Him. Lo, I come, &c. And now, He asks not for deliverance; nay, though He is able to come down from the cross, yet will He not do it. Let Me be crucified is the utterance of the willing sufferer. I have power to lay down My life, and I will lay it down for My sheep. For the joy that is set before Me I will endure the Cross and despise the shame. Father, forgive them, &c.
3. The Holy Spirit joins His voice. In all that He had caused to be written He had foreshadowed the death of the Son of God. The sacrifice in Eden; the sacrifice of Abel; the paschal lamb and the scapegoat; the sacrifices offered every day upon the Jewish altar; all pointed to this Lamb of God now laid upon the altar of the cross. How then, saith the Spirit, shall all be fulfilled unless He be crucified?
II. FROM THE HUMAN SIDE. Is there no petition for this atoning death from the lips of the sinners themselves whom God has so loved? I will suppose that we are gathered about the cross of Christ, and that the consciousness of our sin and misery has dawned upon our minds and is burdening our souls. Shall we enter our protest? Shall we say, Let Him not be crucified. Oh, then, if He should heed our cry, what would become of us? We cannot by any means save ourselves. The soul that sinneth, it shall die; and we cannot make ourselves alive. We are sold unto Satan; we are powerless to deliver ourselves; only One can do that, and He in one way only, viz., by being crucified. If He dies the death, at that instant the doors of our prison-house will fly open and Satan will be powerless to hold us. But not otherwise. And so we cry, O Son of God, die for us. Are we selfish? Would we have Him perish that we may live? Ah, if the condition of our salvation were His everlasting destruction, God forbid that we should demand the awful sacrifice! For what would heaven be with such a memory as that? But when we know that, having died for our sins, He will rise again for our justification; that He would far rather die for us thus than to have us lost; and that our salvation will be a source of joy to Him for ever, we can say, while we mourn that our sins have pierced Him and made it necessary for Him to die, Let Him be crucified. Conclusion:
1. Let nothing draw you who are Christians away from Christ crucified even for one careless moment.
2. What shall be said to those who seem so indifferent about this great event? Shall heaven and hell be moved by this scene, and any of us men, for whose salvation it occurred, pass by it? (G. D. Baker, D. D.)
The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar
No king but Caesar
1. There is nothing which shows more completely what sin is, than the scenes which centre about the death of our Lord. We see wicked men now, but they act generally under restraint; but here sin seemed to be without restraint; and it carried the Jews on to a wickedness unparalleled in history. For Christ did nothing in the whole course of His life to anger men. What aroused evil passions was simply the righteousness that was in Him. Therefore, if we desire to understand what sin itself is, we must look at it in those wicked men, who would have nothing but the blood of the sinless Saviour.
2. In the text we see the degradation of sin. These Jews renounced every thing of national honour and greatness, every hope concerning the Messiah; every principle of patriotism; and they confessed themselves the abject slaves of their Roman conquerors. Heretofore, their highest glory was that God was their King; and in the strength of this position they had endured, with a certain air of grandeur, their oppression. But the language, We have no king but Caesar, was a complete abandonment of all their claims. What was it all for? Simply that hatred might satiate itself in the blood of One who had conferred upon them the highest benefits. It was sin in the heart, acting without restraint, showing its true self. In order to carry out purposes of wrong, it is not unusual to find men falsifying their whole past record, and placing an indelible stain upon their characters. See what avariciousness and covetousness will make a man stoop to, the many mean, tricky, and dishonest actions. See what ambition will bring men to. See how the inordinate appetite for strong drink will bring men from respectability to the gutter. See how impurity, unchastity, and all the vices of fleshly sensuality, destroy manhood. He abandons every thing, to serve the Caesar of his own sinful lusts and passions.
3. In the end these Jews got more than they wanted from Caesar. When they were made to feel the iron heel of the despot in the destruction of their city, how their minds must have reverted to the day when they cried out to Pilate, We have no king but Caesar! So is it with sin when it has finished its work. Its imperious will must be submitted to. When at last the man has reached that awful end in eternity, when there is no thought, desire, affection, will, but to do iniquity; when he is entirely under the control of sin, and is enduring the suffering consequent upon sin–then will be realized the bitter degradation and curse to which sin legitimately tends. (C. S. Abbott.)
Christ, a great King
Latimer, while preaching one day before Henry VIII., stood up in the pulpit, and seeing the king, addressed himself in a kind of soliloquy, thus: Latimer, Latimer, Latimer, take care of what you say, for the great King Henry VIII. is here. Then he paused, and proceeded: Latimer, Latimer, Latimer, take care what you say, for the great King of kings is here. (W. Baxendale.)
The universal sovereignty of Christ
When Alexander the Great set forward upon his great exploits before leaving Macedonia, he divided amongst his captains and nobles all his property. On being rebuked by a friend for having, as he thought, acted so foolishly in parting with all his possessions, reserving nothing for himself, Alexander replied, I have reserved for myself much more than I have given away: I have reserved for myself the hope of universal monarchy; and when, by the valour and help of these my captains and nobles, I shall be monarch of the world, the gifts I have parted with will come back to me with an increase of a thousandfold. (W. Baxendale.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 15. Away with him] : probably this means, kill him. In Isa 57:1, it is said, , , and just men are taken away; that is, according to some, by a violent death.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The more Pilate sought to quiet them, the more they rage, contrary to all dictates of reason; when God hath determined a thing, all things shall concur to bring it about. Pilate mocks them when he saith,
Shall I crucify your King? Yet so fierce was their malice against Christ, that to compel the governor to condemn him, (though there were not a people under heaven more zealous for their liberties, nor more impatient of a foreign yoke), they cry out,
We have no king but Caesar; that is, the Roman emperor, who had conquered them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
15. crucify your King? . . . We haveno king but Csar“Some of those who thus cried diedmiserably in rebellion against Csar forty years afterwards. But itsuited their present purpose” [ALFORD].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But they cried out, Away with him,…. As a person hateful and loathsome to them, the sight of whom they could not bear; and this they said with great indignation and wrath, and with great vehemency, earnestness and importunacy, in a very clamorous way; repeating the words
away with him: they were impatient until he was ordered away for execution; and nothing would satisfy them but the crucifixion of him; and therefore they say,
crucify him; which is also repeated in the Syriac version; for this was what they thirsted after, and were so intent upon; this cry was made by the chief priests:
Pilate saith unto them, shall I crucify your King? This he said either seriously or jeeringly, and it may be with a view to draw out of them their sentiments concerning Caesar, as well as him; however it had this effect;
the chief priests answered, we have no king but Caesar; whereby they denied God to be their king, though they used to say, and still say in their prayers; “we have no king but God” g: they rejected the government of the King Messiah, and tacitly confessed that the sceptre was departed from Judah; and what they now said, came quickly upon them, and still continues; for according to prophecy, Ho 3:4 they have been many days and years “without a king”: and this they said in spite to Jesus, and not in respect to Caesar, whose government they would have been glad to have had an opportunity to shake off. They could name no one as king but Jesus, or Caesar; the former they rejected, and were obliged to own the latter: it is a poor observation of the Jew h upon this passage, that it
“shows that before the crucifixion of Jesus, the Roman Caesars ruled over Israel; and that this Caesar was Tiberius, who had set Pilate over Jerusalem, as is clear from Lu 3:1. Wherefore here is an answer to the objection of the Nazarenes, who say that the Jews, for the sin of crucifying Jesus, lost their kingdom.”
To which may be replied, that this is not said by any of the writers of the New Testament, that the kingdom of the Jews was taken away from them for their sin of crucifying Jesus; and therefore this is no contradiction to anything said by them; this is only the assertion of some private persons, upon whom it lies to defend themselves; and what is asserted, is defensible, nor do the words of the text militate against it: for though before the crucifixion of Christ the Jews were tributary to the Roman Caesars, and Roman governors were sent to preside among them; yet the government was not utterly taken from them, or their kingdom lost; they indeed feared this would be the case, should Jesus succeed and prosper, as he did, saying, “the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation”, Joh 11:48, which shows, that as yet this was not done; though for their disbelief and rejection of the Messiah, their destruction was hastening on apace; and after the crucifixion of him, all power was taken from them; the government was seized upon by the Romans entirely, and at last utterly destroyed; besides, the Jews did not own Caesar to be their king, though they said this now to serve a turn; and after this they had kings of the race of Herod over them, though placed there by the Roman emperor or senate.
g T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 25. 2. Seder Tephillot, fol. 46. 2. Ed. Basil. fol. 71. 2. Ed. Amsterd. h R. Isaac Chizzuk Emuna, par. 2. c. 57. p. 446.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Away with him, away with him (, ). First aorist active imperative of . See in Lu 23:18. This thing has gotten on the nerves of the crowd. Note the repetition. In a second-century papyrus letter (Moulton and Milligan’s Vocabulary) a nervous mother cries “He upsets me; away with him” ( ). Pilate weakly repeats his sarcasm: “ Your king shall I crucify? ( ;).
But Caesar ( ). The chief priests ( ) were Sadducees, who had no Messianic hope like that of the Pharisees. So to carry their point against Jesus they renounce the principle of the theocracy that God was their King (1Sa 12:12).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
They [] . The best texts read ejkeinoi, those (people). The pronoun of remote reference isolates and sharply distinguishes them from Jesus. See on 13 27.
Away with him [] . Literally, take away.
We have no king but Caesar. These words, uttered by the chief priests, are very significant. These chief representatives of the theocratic government of Israel thus formally and expressly renounce it, and declare their allegiance to a temporal and pagan power. This utterance is “the formal abdication of the Messianic hope.”
16 – 17. Compare Mt 27:31 – 34; Mr 14:20 – 23; Luk 23:26 – 33.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “But they cried out,’ (ekraugosan auton oun ekeinoi) “Then they shouted out,” all at once, Luk 23:18, vociferously, like howling wolves and yapping jackles, led by emotion stirring chief priest mob leaders, Mat 27:18; Mat 27:20.
2) “Away with him, away with him, crucify him,” (aron, aron, stauroson auton) “Take him away, take him away, crucify him;” Repeatedly they cried out, prodded by the mob-inciting priests who feared they would lose their jobs if they or their people accepted Jesus Christ, Joh 11:47-53; Exo 23:2; Luk 23:23.
3) “Pilate saith unto them,” (legei autois ho Pilatos) “Pilate said to them,” to those chief priests who, “moved the people,” or stirred up the screaming mob of Jewish people, Mar 15:11.
4) “Shall I crucify your King?” (ton baseleia humon stauroso) “Shall I crucify your king?” Is that what you want? Shall I order Him killed like a Gentile heathen, a seditionist, or insurrectionist? Gal 3:13.
5) “The chief priests answered,” (apekrithesan hoi archiereis) “The administrative priests responded in unison,” with envy and hate and murder in their hearts, Mat 27:18; Joh 8:37; Joh 8:40; Joh 8:44; Joh 15:25.
6) “We have no king but Caesar.” (ouk echomen basilea ei me Kaisara) “We have not a king except Caesar,” a confession from Jewish people who had claimed for near 1,500 years that God was their king, and that they looked for a promised king, Gen 49:10; 1Sa 12:12-13; Luk 1:32-33; Hos 3:4.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
15. We have no king but Caesar. This is a display of shocking madness, that the priests, who ought to have been well acquainted with the Law, reject Christ, in whom the salvation of the people was wholly contained, on whom all the promises depended, and on whom the whole of their religion was founded; and, indeed, by rejecting Christ, they deprive themselves of the grace of God and of every blessing. We see, then, what insanity had seized them. Let us suppose that Jesus Christ was not the Christ; (165) still they have no excuse for acknowledging no other king but Caesar. For, first, they revolt from the spiritual kingdom of God; and, secondly, they prefer the tyranny of the Roman Empire, which they greatly abhorred, to a just government, such as God had promised to them. Thus wicked men, in order to fly from Christ, not only deprive themselves of eternal life, but draw down on their heads every kind of miseries. On the other hand, the sole happiness of the godly is, to be subject to the royal authority of Christ, whether, according to the flesh, they are placed under a just and lawful government, under the oppression of tyrants.
(165) “ Que Jesus Christ ne fust point le Christ.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(15) But they cried out . . .Better, they cried out therefore . . . They feel the sting of Pilates irony, therefore cry the more passionately, Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him.
Shall I crucify your King?In the order of the Greek words your King comes emphatically first, Your Kingshall I crucify Him? The taunt is uttered in its bitterest form.
We have no king but Csar.They are driven by Pilates taunt, and by their hatred of Jesus, to a denial of their own highest hopes. They who gloried in the Theocracy, and hoped for a temporal Messianic reign, which should free them from Roman bondage; they who boasted that they were never in bondage to any man (Joh. 8:33); they who were chief priests of the Jews, confess that Csar is their only king. The words were doubtless meant, as those in Joh. 19:12, to drive Pilate to comply with their wishes, under the dread of an accusation at Rome. They had this effect.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
15. We have no king but Cesar Thus, to repudiate the Messiahship of Jesus, they not only lay firm claim to the domination of the Romans, but reject Jehovah himself as the king of Israel.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Joh 19:15. Shall I crucify your king? According to most commentators, Pilate said this mocking them; but it is more agreeable to his general behaviour in this affair to suppose, that he spoke it with a view to move the populace, who, he knew, had once held Jesus in great esteem as the Messiah: for we are told, in the 12th verse, that he sought to release him. The chief priests replied to him, We have no king but Caesar; in which reply they publicly renounced their hope of the Messiah, which the whole oeconomy of their religion had been calculated to cherish. Likewise, they acknowledged publicly their subjection to the Romans, and, by so doing, condemned themselves when they afterwards rebelled.
The unwillingness which the governor shewed all along to pass the sentence of death upon Jesus, has something very remarkable in it; for, by the character which he bears in the Roman history, he seems to have been far from possessing any true principle of virtue. To what then could it be owing, that so wicked a man thus steadily adhered to the cause of innocence, which he defended with an uncommon bravery, till the threatenings of the grandees vanquished him? And when he did yield, taking from our Lordhis life, how came he to leave him his innocence? Certainly this can be attributed to no other cause than the secret powerful direction of the providence of God, who intended, that, at the same time, his Son was condemned and executed as a malefactor, his innocence should be made to appear in the most public manner, and bythe most authentic evidence; even by the testimony of his judges, Herod and Pilate; the latter of whom frequently declared him innocent in the course of his trial.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Joh 19:15-16 . The bitterness is still further embittered. To the impetuous clamour which demands crucifixion, the question of Pilate: your king shall I crucify? is only the feeble echo of . ., whereupon, with the decisive , . . ., although it perfidiously denied the sense of the hierarchy, the again awakened fear of the emperor at last completely disarms the procurator, so that now then ( ) the tragic and ignominious final result of his judicial action comes out: , Nonnus.
] to the chief priests , Joh 19:15 . To these Jesus was given over , and that, as a matter of fact, not merely by the sentence of itself (Hengstenberg), that He might be crucified under their direction by Roman soldiers (Joh 19:23 , comp. Mat 27:26-27 ). Comp. Joh 8:28 ; Act 2:23 ; Act 3:15 . . does not signify to yield to their desire (Grotius, B. Crusius, Baeumlein).
On crucifixion in general, see on Mat 27:35 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
15 But they cried out, Away with him , away with him , crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
Ver. 15. We have no king but Caesar ] Why but, Is there no king in Sion? is her counsellor perished? saith the prophet, Mic 4:9 . Did not these men look for a Messiah? Or if not, will they reject the Lord from being their King? Oh, how blind is malice, how desperately set upon its ends and enterprises! But in Christ’s kingdom this is wonderful, saith Zanchius, that this King willeth and causeth that the kingdoms of the world be subject to his kingdom; and again he willeth and causeth that his kingdom be also subject to the kingdoms of the world. In regno Christi hoc mirabile est, quod iste rex vult et efficit. (Zanch. Miscel.)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
15. ] . . ., a degrading confession from the chief priests of that people of whom it was said, “The Lord your God is your King.” 1Sa 12:12 . “Jesum negant usque eo, ut omnino Christum negent,” Bengel. However, it furthered the present purpose, and to this all was sacrificed, including truth itself; for the confession was not only degrading, but false in their mouths. Some of those who now cried this, died miserably in rebellion against Csar forty years afterwards.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 19:15 . They at once shouted, , , . To this Pilate could offer only the feeble opposition of more sarcasm, ; where, of course, the emphasis is on the first words, John with his artistic perception exhibits their final rejection of Christ in the form in which it appeared as a reckless renunciation of all their national liberties and hopes: . Even yet Pilate will take no active part, but hands Jesus over to the Sanhedrists with the requisite authorisation; , used in a semi-technical sense, cf. Plut., Dem. , xiv. 4, and the passages cited in Holden’s note.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Away with. Greek. airo. First occurrence in Joh 1:29. The imperative aron is used in exactly the same way in a Papyrus from Oxyrhynchus, in a letter from a boy to his father. Deissmann, Light, p. 187.
Shall I . . . ? = Is it your King I am to crucify?
We have, &c. This was their final and deliberate rejection of their King, and the practical surrender of all their Messianic hopes. Compare 1Sa 8:7.
but. Same as “except” in Joh 19:11.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
15.] . . .,-a degrading confession from the chief priests of that people of whom it was said, The Lord your God is your King. 1Sa 12:12. Jesum negant usque eo, ut omnino Christum negent, Bengel. However, it furthered the present purpose, and to this all was sacrificed, including truth itself; for the confession was not only degrading, but false in their mouths. Some of those who now cried this, died miserably in rebellion against Csar forty years afterwards.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 19:15. , answered) And yet they would have gladly set aside Csar, if they could. They deny Jesus to such a degree as to deny the Christ altogether: Act 17:7, The Jews in Thessalonica say against Jason, etc., These all do contrary to the decrees of Csar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 19:15
Joh 19:15
They therefore cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him!-Aroused and excited by their success, with more bitterness they cry out thus. Pilate still taunts them with demanding the crucifixion of their King.
Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.-The Jews were anxious to be free from the dominion of the Romans, but to meet Pilate on grounds that condemn him, they claim Caesar as their only king. Men maddened with wicked fury profess anything to carry their ends.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Away: Joh 19:6, Luk 23:18, Act 21:36, Act 22:22
We have: Joh 18:31, Gen 49:10, Eze 21:26, Eze 21:27
Reciprocal: Deu 28:43 – General Psa 62:9 – Surely Psa 149:2 – let the Isa 49:7 – to him whom man despiseth Isa 53:2 – he hath no Eze 19:14 – she hath Hos 3:4 – without a king Hos 10:3 – We have Zec 9:9 – behold Zec 11:6 – into the Mat 21:5 – thy King Mat 25:34 – the King Mat 26:68 – thou Mat 27:17 – or Mat 27:20 – should Mat 27:22 – What Mar 11:9 – Hosanna Mar 15:18 – Hail Luk 23:5 – they Luk 23:21 – General Joh 12:13 – the King Act 3:13 – whom Act 4:27 – the people Act 7:35 – Moses
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE KING
Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Csar.
Joh 19:15
Are there no Pilates with us nowmen and women to whom the obedience of Christ seems almost impossiblewho have grown so entirely worldly that there is scarce an avenue left for Christs message to reach them? Oh! that before the last opportunity be gone the figure of the King might come before them; that they might be startled at the look upon His face of Divine other-worldliness.
I. Whence was Christ the King?From the eternal glory of God, from the right hand of the Majesty on high, from heaven, that home where we must go, or forfeit all the joy of eternal life. Shall not we, who by Gods grace have learned the lesson, cry out in all our lives, O blessed Lord, we know Thee, whence Thou camest; we bless Thy Holy Name Thou didst come, and that Thou hast gone back again to prepare a place for us. For the glory of that place has touched the hill-tops of our lives, and we know that the full sunshine is but the other side.
II. Turn to consider the cry of the Jews, We have no king but Csar! It was a cry as true as it was sad. By the mouth of their own leaders they acknowledge their national degradation. They had, indeed, no king to guide them, legislate for them, judge them, and die for them. No king but this One Whom they will not own. Once God was their King, directing their armies, strengthening and teaching their rulers, absolutely providing for every need of their national life. Then, at least, men of their own kith and kin; now a foreign tyrant, a jailer, chaining and despising them and their religion; contemptuously tolerant of their God! This is the nation which once sang, The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory; The Lord is our King, and He will save us; God is my King of old.
III. Man, whether gathered into a nation, or in his individual life, must have a king.And the choice is not complicated, though its issues are tremendous. It is Christ or Csar. Csar may stand for the world, the flesh, the devil. For Satan says to us all, See what I will give thee, all the pleasures of the world, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Do you want to heap up money; do you want to enjoy life; do you want to rise in the world, though it be upon the trampled bodies of your fellows? It must be by my aid. What raised the cry in the case before us was something even more terrible. The Pharisees desired to stifle the voice which was crying out upon their iniquities. It was the truth they feared, and they would have none of it. And they drowned the voice of truth in the frenzied cry of themselves and of their dupes. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and My people love to have it so. And what will ye do in the end thereof?
IV. And is Christ the King of this our land?If we as a country do not revile Him, do we worship Him? We have found a more decorous way to quiet the voice; we do not cry, Crucify Him! crucify Him! But to some it seems that we are every whit as far as the Jews were from acknowledging Him as the Director of the conscience of the nation, as the King of our kings, and the Lord of our lords! There lies around us a huge mass of heathendom: refined and luxurious on the one hand, coarse and wretched on the other; intellectual here, animal there. We mayflatter ourselves on our wealth, on our dominions, on our navy, on the purity of our courts, but none can say that Christ reigns here. And it is idle to dispute as to whether Csars sway be now rather more or less extensive than a few years back. It is a great iron tyranny still. Can we do anything? Is it not mockery to cry Give ye them to eat? Well, doubtless among the Jewish throng one here and there would gladly have raised a cry for Christ, but feared or thought it useless in the face of such demoniacal possession. Yet the cry might have cheered the Masters heart, might have been a nucleus round which others would have gathered.
At any rate, our duty is clear. We must not for a moment lay ourselves open to the suspicion of going with the crowd. The Lords needs faithful witnesses; the world stifles our witness with its Babel cry of Csar, Csar! Then let us cry louder, Christ, Christ! Cry aloud and spare not! Let no comradeship, no society customs, no business methods, drown the cry, Christ, Christ! Oh, for more knees that will not bow to Baal, for more fathers, mothers, schoolboys and schoolgirls, menservants and maidservants, who will openly, faithfully, constantly say, Christ is the Kingon Sunday and on weekday, in the home and in the world, Christ is the King!
Rev. Dr. Flecker.
Illustration
Do you not see what is involved in taking the crucified Jesus as our King? It is something vastly more than doing homage to the superlative excellence of a spotless life, or to the marvellous wisdom of the founder of a new code of morals. It is to recognise in Him, and in this His crowning work, the propitiation for your sins; to feel the heinousness, the separation from God, which sin involves; to feel the burden of them to be intolerable; to feel that here He rids us of the load. And even more than that. For this is but the first step of a new life. As the Master, so the servant. We must gird ourselves with the towel and wash our brethrens feet; we must take the Beatitudes as the code of our lives; we must welcome difficulties, trials, persecutions, false revilings, for Christs sake. In a word, we must walk in the Light. Oh, let us who have recognised the claims of Christ upon us be loyal! False worship has ever dogged the footsteps of the King, from the time when Herod bade the Wise Men bring him word that I may come and worship Him also. There has ever been the Judas, the Ananias, the Sapphira; and there have been, too, the timid ones worshipping Him secretly for fear of the Jews, denying Him around a fire of coals. But we will pray the Holy Spirit to help us to recognise the supreme claim which the King has upon our allegiance, upon our worship, upon our speech, our purse, our time. We will pray Him to keep us faithful, us who are called and chosen, until He Who is Lord of lords and King of kings shall triumph and lead us rejoicing in His train.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
5
When Pilate asked the Jews to behold their king (in preceding verse), it enraged them still more and made them want the execution performed at once. Pilate gave them one last chance just before giving Jesus over to the executioners, to change their minds and snatch him as it were from the cross. He made the appeal as pointed as possible by asking, “Shall I crucify your King?” This desperate move of his reminds us of the language of Peter in Act 3:13, where he says of Pilate’s attitude toward Jesus, “he was determined to let him go.” The chief priests rejected all of Pilate’s suggestions. Their statement, We have no king but Caesar, was not made except as a retort to Pilate’s question, and not in the spirit of patriotic loyalty.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 19:15. They therefore cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Instinct tells them that the last moment when they may accomplish their object is arrived: and, roused to the utmost pitch of fury by the words of Pilate, they cry out, with a quick repetition of words corresponding to their feelings, Let him be hurried off to crucifixion. But Pilate will still further provoke them, still further pour out his contempt upon them.
Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? Then follow those words evidently so full of meaning to the Evangelist.
The chief priests answered, We have no king but Csar. The chief priests, the heads of the Theocracy of Israel, give the answer, which thus comes upon us with a more terrible force than it could otherwise have done. What an answer is it! It is the utterance of self-condemnation, the renouncing of the chief honour of the chosen people, the casting away of what had most distinguished them in the past, of what they hoped most from in the future, We have no king but Csar. God is rejected; Messianic hope is trampled under foot. In the moment of securing the death of their true King, the Jews, by the mouth of their leaders and representatives, plunge themselves into the lowest depths of guilt and shame.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
The Jewish mob led by their leaders shouted their rejection of their King. They went farther than that and called for His crucifixion. They also hypocritically professed their allegiance to Caesar as their only king (Gr. basilea). This was going way beyond merely rejecting Jesus. They were now repudiating Israel’s messianic hope, including the messianic kingdom, and rejecting Yahweh’s sovereignty over their nation (cf. Jdg 8:23; 1Sa 8:7). The chief priests probably went this far to encourage Pilate to grant their request and to crucify Jesus (cf. Mat 27:25).
The Jewish hierarchy had accused Jesus of blaspheming, but now these men were guilty of blasphemy themselves (cf. 1:11). Such firm rejection helps us understand why God turned from Israel temporarily to continue His dealings with humankind through the church (cf. Romans 9-11).
"On this occasion they spoke in terms of cynical expediency. But they expressed the real truth. Their lives showed that they gave no homage to God." [Note: Morris, p. 710.]