John 19:11Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

For because Christ's death was "given from above," that is, permitted, Pilate and the Jews do not thereby become innocent. Their free will chose evil, while God allowed and permitted them to bring it into action.

Therefore, because God permits malice to come into action, the wicked are not free from guilt. Because they choose and do evil, they are worthy of every condemnation.

By these words the Lord frightened Pilate and gave a clear defense of Himself. If I had not voluntarily delivered Myself up, and if the Father had not permitted this, you would have no power over Me.

There is sin on you, and a still greater sin on him who delivered Me, Judas, or even the people. For it added to the pain of My wounds a new pain, and did not remember the duty of showing mercy.

Finding Me silent and helpless, it delivered Me to the cross. It was not ashamed even that I had come out innocent from so many tribunals, but cried, "Crucify, crucify!"

For it would indeed have caused no small harm to some if they thought that Christ was subjected to involuntary outrages. It would harm them to think that, against His will and by force, He came under the power of the Jews.

For He is God by nature and is proclaimed in the holy and God-inspired Scripture as King over all.

Thus He removed the occasion for our stumbling and, as it were, uprooted the error by the words, "unless it had been given you from above."

He says that authority was given to Pilate from above, not as though God the Father imposed involuntary suffering on the cross upon His own Son.

Rather, the Only-begotten Himself delivered Himself to suffering for us, with the Father's good pleasure that this mystery should be accomplished in Him.

Therefore, by this gift, "given from above," He clearly means and names the consent and permission of the Father, together with the Son's own desire.

Indeed, there can be no doubt that the crowd did not overpower the Savior's authority.

This is easy to see from the fact that, despite their frequent plots, they had no success. Instead, exposed as blasphemers, they came under condemnation.

Thus, as the Evangelist reports, they once wanted to seize Him. But He went out, "passed through the midst of them, and so went away" (Jn 8:59; cf. Lk 4:30).

He uses "so" in the sense of openly and without fear. He did not assume the appearance of those fleeing, but walked freely, in His usual way, and wholly without fear.

By a certain divine and ineffable power, He hid Himself and then vanished from the murderers' eyes. He did not yet wish to suffer.

Nor did He permit His raging persecutors to subject Him to death against His will.

Therefore, He says, by His own will and by the good pleasure of God the Father, "authority," or the full possibility, was given to Pilate to do with Him what he had already dared.

For the divine and supreme nature proves to be subject to nothing that exists. Dominion over all belongs to it by nature.

He presents the "sin" against Him as "greater," evidently the sin of the one who brought Him to Pilate. This is altogether just.

For the betrayer became, as it were, the beginning and door of impiety against Him. The judge, however, proved to be the executor of others' evil plots.

Through untimely cowardice, Pilate became a participant in the Jews' godlessness.

Who, then, delivered Him up, and on whom does the first guilt of the crime fall? I think it falls on the disciple easily bought for money, or rather on the betrayer and destroyer of his own soul.

It also falls on the crowd of rulers and on the Jewish people itself. He assigns to them the greatest share of impiety, yet does not leave Pilate's head altogether free from it.

Therefore He said, "You would have no power over Me," that is, the power you have, "unless what belongs to it had been given you from above."

But since I know its limits, and that your will is not in all things free, "therefore he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin."

He delivered Me to your authority out of envy. You, however, intend to exercise that authority against Me out of fear.

And although even out of fear a man should not kill a man, especially an innocent man, to do this with sincere zeal is a much greater evil than to do it from fear.

Therefore the truthful Teacher did not say, "He who delivered Me to you has sin," as though Pilate himself had no sin.

He said, "has the greater sin," so that Pilate might understand that sin was also on him. For sin does not cease to be sin because another's sin is greater.

Yet so that Pilate should not imagine himself irresponsible for exercising such authority, Jesus immediately explains that he too will bear responsibility for his actions.

Only this responsibility will be less than that which awaits Judas the betrayer and the whole Synedrion.

Earthly judgments, like all human deeds, stand under the invisible governance of the heavenly Judge. He will one day demand a strict account from unrighteous rulers.

And so the Lord, without satisfying Pilate's untimely curiosity, nevertheless gives help to his weak conscience.

He reminds him that the matter with which he is now occupied is subject not only to his Lithostrotos, but to a far higher, divine judgment.

Pilate remains only the instrument of that judgment on earth.

By the words, "The greater sin is on him who delivered Me to you," Pilate is shown as much as was needed for his correction. He is shown the future fate of Jesus' enemies and his own.

He is allowed to hear beforehand the future sentence upon himself from the heavenly Judge. It is for not saving the Righteous One from death.

He hears it with complete precision. Inevitable punishment awaits him, though less than the punishment of Jesus' personal enemies and betrayers.

"The authorities that exist are appointed by God" (Rom 13:1).

Pilate, not knowing this, abused his great and lawful rights partly through pagan ignorance. In this measure he was less guilty than the false accusers who sat on Moses' seat.

Some writers, arguing that Pilate alone had the right of judgment in this case, and that the Synedrion's proceeding was an abuse, have appealed to this text.

They said that its first half acknowledges the exclusive right of the Roman tribunal, while its last half accuses Caiaphas of unlawful procedure and betrayal.

This opinion rests on nothing and, under the circumstances, seems absurd.

"Judex Judicantium," the Judge of those who judge.

And Christ answered Pilate: "You would have no power over Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore, although you too commit sin by not acting with sufficient courage in defense of justice, the greater sin is on him who delivered Me to you."

Even in His utter abasement, endured through the fault of this Roman governor, Christ is infinitely merciful and compassionate toward him.

At that moment He became the Judge before whom the proud pagan stood accused, and He taught him a lesson of eternal righteousness.

By the one who delivered Him is meant the supreme council of the Jews, the Synedrion. As its representative, there is Caiaphas, the high priest of that year.

As its instrument, there is Judas Iscariot. In general, it also means the Jewish people in its worse part, which did not receive its Messiah and did not believe in Him.

In heaven righteousness is strictly observed. There each receives what is his. Therefore the Lord says to Pilate, "The greater sin is on him who delivered Me to you."

Pilate did not know exactly who the One accused before him was. Moreover, he was not the one who rose up against Jesus.

The Synedrion maliciously delivered Jesus to Pilate, though it had every means of knowing Jesus' divine dignity. Therefore Pilate is less guilty than the stubborn enemies of Judea.

"That servant," the Savior said to the Jews, "who knew his master's will and did not do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes" (Lk 12:47).

Yet Pilate too is not safe. The heavenly Judge will not leave the earthly judge unpunished when he did not save the Righteous One from death.