John 19:6Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The common people still felt some slight restraint before the evils inflicted on Christ. Perhaps they remembered the miracles He had wrought. But these men were first to begin the accusation, and they kindled the rage of the people subject to them for lawless cruelties.

Therefore what God spoke of them through the prophets is true: “Because the shepherds became foolish and did not seek the Lord, therefore the whole flock did not understand and was scattered” (Jer 10:21). This word is true. Since those who were in the place of a flock, that is, the common people, did not receive guidance from their leaders toward the knowledge of Christ, they perished and fell into destructive madness against Christ.

Let someone examine the beginning of this impiety, and he will assign it to the rulers of the Jews. For with them at first was that most impious council (Jn 11:47-53). They bribed the betrayer with sacred money and persuaded him to sell Him to them (Mt 26:14-16 and parallels). They joined a band of soldiers to the servants and ordered Him bound, as if He were one of the vilest robbers.

They brought Him to Pilate. Seeing Him subjected to scourging and handed over to mockery by all, they increased their rage and uttered words of immeasurable malice. Their purpose was to kill the lord of the vineyard. They thought they would securely seize His inheritance (Mt 21:38 and parallels). Once Christ was removed, they expected again to rule and receive honors from all.

But, as the Psalmist says, “He who dwells in the heavens shall laugh at them, and the Lord shall deride them” (Ps 2:4). None of their intentions came to pass. Contrary to their wishes, the state of affairs took the very opposite course.

“Pilate said to them: Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him.”

Pilate thinks with amazement: will the Jewish people and the most inhuman assembly of the chief priests reach such audacity that they will not shrink from subjecting Christ even to this dreadful death, though there is no fault deserving it?

Therefore, as if with indignation and offense, he says: do you wish to make me the author of this unrighteous murder? Shall I, contrary to all Roman laws, become a murderer even of the innocent? Shall I obey your voices and neglect my own advantage? If I become the senseless executor of your requests, can I expect no trouble for myself?

If you see nothing ungodly in this execution, and if you do not consider this deed dreadful, then you yourselves, he says, who boast of divine teachings and proudly glory in knowledge of the laws, set up the cross. Commit the wicked murder. Act impiously by yourselves. Place the guilt for such impiety upon your own heads.

Let this audacious crime be Jewish. Let the evil of the murder turn back upon yourselves. If you have a law that subjects one who has sinned in nothing to such dreadful punishments, let it be done through you yourselves. I will have no part in it.

Something like this, one may suppose, Pilate said. His speech has almost this meaning. Here again everyone should be struck by the shamelessness of the Jews. They were not restrained even by the justice of a foreigner, though the divine law had declared concerning them: “The lips of a priest should guard judgment, and they shall seek the law from his mouth” (Mal 2:7).

Therefore only the case under Jewish law remained to be decided. But since the force of this law was limited, and under it they could not put a man to death, Pilate, saying to the Jews, “Take Him yourselves and crucify Him,” only made another biting allusion to their lack of authority over human life.

It remained to close the assembly and disperse the gathering. But Pilate lacked the resolve for this, and by his irresolution he ruined the whole matter.

The accusers saw that, if Pilate remained firm, their victim might escape from their hands. They would by no means have dared to crucify the Lord on their own responsibility, for fear of the Romans, who did not like to indulge the self-will of subject peoples.

Therefore they give the accusation another turn, seeing that the procurator does not consider the charge of “insulting majesty” well-founded. They appeal to their own law, according to which the accused, as a blasphemer, must be subjected to the death penalty.

The Romans left in force the laws and institutions of conquered peoples, unless for some reason they were judged harmful to Roman authority. The Jews now rely on this in their accusation of Jesus. They appeal to the law of Lev 24:16, according to which every blasphemer must be put to death.

They bring the Lord under this law because He made Himself the Son of God (cf. the note on Jn 5:18; Jn 10:29-38 and parallels).

If we remember that the Jews, by their own admission, did not have the right to put anyone to death by themselves, it is not hard to understand what Pilate meant to say to them in these angry words. He told them that, by resolutely refusing to confirm their sentence against Jesus as unjust, he was leaving them to their own arbitrariness and to the authority of the law, which is severe against self-will.

In other words, he let them know that he saw them as rebels whom the higher authority ought to restrain by strict measures. This was, of course, a strong declaration by Pilate of Jesus’ innocence. Yet it still added bitterness to the Sufferer, who was being left in the hands of manifest evildoers.

Christian listeners, who is this wounded, tormented Sufferer? Who is this one whom Pilate shows in blood and wounds, disgraced and torn by insolence? Alas, some devote almost half their lives to knowing empty things, useless things, even things harmful to the soul. Yet they never think about who suffers so many torments in Pilate’s praetorium, and why.

What books do they read? What do they read about? Others know Jesus crucified. They know that He was tormented for us and suffered so much for our sins. Yet they remain cold and distracted, as if the matter were not theirs, as if it did not concern them at all.

They are as pitiless toward the Sufferer as the Jews were. They count as nothing all His torments for their sins, and they live carelessly in sins.

Did He not suffer for our impiety so that we should no longer live for impiety, but for Him alone, our Lord? He bought us with His Blood. He endured the scourging of pagan inhumanity so that we should no longer present the members of our body as instruments of sin (Rom 6:13).

He, the Son of God, bore the mockery of shameless insolence so that we might live in the fear of God.

Behold the Man! Look, sinner, how He is tormented for you. Why do you wish, by your impenitence, to add wounds to His wounds and insult to His insults?

Behold the Man! The flesh and the world seek only your destruction, and you love them. You serve them with astonishing zeal. But for Him, your Lord, where are your sacrifices? Where are your labors?

Behold the Man! Come to yourself, sinner. How long before your insensibility, your ingratitude, and your impenitence call down upon you the vengeance of heavenly righteousness?

Do you hear what the Apostle says? He says: “If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. Maranatha. The Lord comes,” that is, to judge impious hypocrites (1 Cor 16:22).

Behold the Man, tormented for our iniquities! Tears and labors, fasting and the weakening of the flesh, renunciation of all that is dear to the heart, prayers and sighs: how little would these mean compared with His sufferings for us?

Let us fall down, brothers and sisters. Let us fall down with compunction of soul and heart before Him who suffers for us. May He, who loves us without measure, forgive us and quicken our cold hearts with love for Him.

Christ Jesus, grant us to recognize and feel the horror of insensibility to habits of sin. Grant us to see and feel that Thou art our only Savior. Amen.