John 19:4
Once again Pilate came out and said to the Jews, "Look, I am bringing Him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against Him."
Once again Pilate went out
This phrase indicates Pilate's repeated efforts to communicate with the Jewish leaders and the crowd. The Greek word for "went out" (ἐξῆλθεν, exēlthen) suggests a deliberate action, emphasizing Pilate's role as a mediator between Jesus and the accusers. Historically, Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea, and his actions reflect the political tension of maintaining order while dealing with a controversial figure like Jesus. Pilate's repeated engagement shows his reluctance to condemn an innocent man, highlighting the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by leaders.

and said to them
The act of speaking to the crowd underscores Pilate's attempt to assert his authority and communicate his decision. The Greek verb "said" (λέγει, legei) is in the present tense, indicating a continuous or repeated action. This suggests Pilate's ongoing dialogue with the people, reflecting his struggle to balance justice with political expediency. In a broader scriptural context, this moment illustrates the fulfillment of prophecy and the unfolding of God's redemptive plan through Jesus' trial and crucifixion.

Look
The word "Look" (Ἴδε, Ide) is an imperative, drawing attention to what Pilate is about to present. It serves as a call for the crowd to observe and consider the situation carefully. This command highlights Pilate's attempt to appeal to the crowd's sense of justice and reason. In a spiritual sense, it invites readers to contemplate the significance of Jesus' innocence and the injustice of His condemnation, prompting reflection on the nature of truth and righteousness.

I am bringing Him out to you
Pilate's action of bringing Jesus out (φέρων, pherōn) signifies a public display meant to elicit a response from the crowd. This phrase emphasizes the transparency of the proceedings and Pilate's desire to demonstrate Jesus' harmlessness. Historically, Roman trials were public affairs, and this act aligns with the legal customs of the time. Spiritually, it symbolizes the revelation of Christ to the world, foreshadowing His ultimate sacrifice for humanity's sins.

to let you know
This phrase indicates Pilate's intention to inform or convince the crowd of his judgment. The Greek word for "know" (γνῶτε, gnōte) implies understanding or realization. Pilate seeks to convey his conclusion that Jesus is not guilty of any crime deserving death. This moment reflects the broader theme of revelation in the Gospel of John, where Jesus is consistently revealed as the truth and the light, despite human misunderstanding and rejection.

that I find no basis for a charge against Him
Pilate's declaration of finding "no basis for a charge" (οὐδεμίαν αἰτίαν, oudemian aitian) underscores Jesus' innocence. The legal terminology used here reflects the Roman judicial system, where a charge required substantial evidence. Pilate's repeated assertion of Jesus' innocence highlights the injustice of the trial and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies regarding the suffering servant. From a theological perspective, this statement affirms Jesus as the spotless Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, despite being unjustly condemned by human authorities.

Persons / Places / Events
1. Pontius Pilate
The Roman governor of Judea who presided over the trial of Jesus. He is depicted as a reluctant judge who finds no fault in Jesus but ultimately succumbs to the pressure of the crowd.

2. Jesus Christ
The central figure of Christianity, who is on trial before Pilate. He is portrayed as innocent and without fault, fulfilling His role as the sacrificial Lamb.

3. The Jews
Referring to the Jewish leaders and the crowd present at the trial, who are demanding Jesus' crucifixion despite Pilate's declaration of His innocence.

4. The Praetorium
The Roman governor's official residence in Jerusalem, where Jesus' trial before Pilate takes place.

5. The Trial of Jesus
A pivotal event in the Passion account, where Jesus is judged by Pilate and ultimately sentenced to crucifixion, despite being found without fault.
Teaching Points
The Innocence of Christ
Jesus is declared innocent by a Roman authority, underscoring His sinlessness and fulfilling the role of the spotless Lamb of God.

The Pressure of Public Opinion
Pilate's actions demonstrate the danger of succumbing to public pressure rather than standing for truth and justice.

Prophecy Fulfilled
Jesus' trial and declaration of innocence fulfill Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah, affirming the reliability of Scripture.

The Role of Authority
Pilate's struggle highlights the responsibility of leaders to uphold justice, even when it is unpopular or difficult.

The Cost of Redemption
Despite His innocence, Jesus willingly endures suffering and death, illustrating the depth of His love and the cost of our redemption.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does Pilate's declaration of Jesus' innocence impact your understanding of Jesus' role as the sacrificial Lamb?

2. In what ways can we see the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies in the events of John 19:4?

3. How can Pilate's struggle with public opinion inform our own decisions when faced with peer pressure or societal expectations?

4. What does Jesus' response to His unjust trial teach us about handling injustice and suffering in our own lives?

5. How can we apply the lessons from Pilate's role as a leader to our own positions of authority or influence?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Isaiah 53
This passage prophesies the suffering servant who is innocent yet bears the sins of many. It connects to Pilate's declaration of Jesus' innocence and His role as the sacrificial Lamb.

Matthew 27
Provides a parallel account of Jesus' trial before Pilate, offering additional insights into Pilate's internal conflict and the crowd's insistence on crucifixion.

1 Peter 2:22-23
Highlights Jesus' sinlessness and His response to unjust suffering, reinforcing the theme of His innocence and submission to God's will.
Pilate's ConfessionW. H. Van Doren, D. D., Bp. Ryle.John 19:4
People
Cleopas, Cleophas, Jesus, Joseph, Mary, Nicodemus, Pilate
Places
Arimathea, Gabbatha, Golgotha, Jerusalem, Nazareth, The Place of the Skull, The Stone Pavement
Topics
Basis, Behold, Bring, Bringing, Charge, Clear, Clearly, Crime, Fault, Forth, Guilt, Jews, Pilate, Says, Understand, Whatever, Wrong
Dictionary of Bible Themes
John 19:4

     5201   accusation

John 19:1-6

     7505   Jews, the

John 19:2-6

     4520   thorns

John 19:2-12

     2585   Christ, trial

John 19:3-4

     7505   Jews, the

John 19:4-16

     5714   men

Library
February 20 Morning
He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.--ISA. 53:11. Jesus . . . said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.--He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.--To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

August 4 Morning
It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.--JOHN 19:30. Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.--I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.--We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering an offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

October 18 Morning
One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.--JOHN 19:34. Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you.--The life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls.--It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Jesus said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.--By his own blood he entered in once into
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

February 17 Morning
The whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire.--LEV. 4:12. They took Jesus, and led him away. And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: where they crucified him.--The bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

The Title on the Cross
'Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross.' --JOHN xix. 19. This title is recorded by all four Evangelists, in words varying in form but alike in substance. It strikes them all as significant that, meaning only to fling a jeer at his unruly subjects, Pilate should have written it, and proclaimed this Nazarene visionary to be He for whom Israel had longed through weary ages. John's account is the fullest, as indeed his narrative of all Pilate's shufflings is the most complete. He alone records
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

The Irrevocable Past
'What I have written I have written.'--JOHN xix. 22. This was a mere piece of obstinacy. Pilate knew that he had prostituted his office in condemning Jesus, and he revenged himself for weak compliance by ill-timed mulishness. A cool-headed governor would have humoured his difficult subjects in such a trifle, as a just one would have been inflexible in a matter of life and death. But this man's facile yielding and his stiff-necked obstinacy were both misplaced. 'So I will, so I command. Let my will
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Christ's Finished and Unfinished Work
'Jesus ... said, It is finished.'--JOHN xix. 30. 'He said unto me, It is done.'--REV. xxi. 6. One of these sayings was spoken from the Cross, the other from the Throne. The Speaker of both is the same. In the one, His voice 'then shook the earth,' as the rending rocks testified; in the other, His voice 'will shake not the earth only but also heaven'; for 'new heavens and a new earth' accompanied the proclamation. In the one, like some traveller ready to depart, who casts a final glance over his preparations,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Christ Our Passover
'These things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken.'--JOHN xix. 36. The Evangelist, in the words of this text, points to the great Feast of the Passover and to the Paschal Lamb, as finding their highest fulfilment, as he calls it, in Jesus Christ. For this purpose of bringing out the correspondence between the shadow and the substance he avails himself of a singular coincidence concerning a perfectly unimportant matter--viz., the abnormally rapid sinking
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

The Grave in a Garden
'In the garden a new tomb.'--JOHN xix. 41 (R.V.). This is possibly no more than a topographical note introduced merely for the sake of accuracy. But it is quite in John's manner to attach importance to these apparent trifles and to give no express statement that he is doing so. There are several other instances in the Gospel where similar details are given which appear to have had in his eyes a symbolical meaning--e.g. 'And it was night.' There may have been such a thought in his mind, for all men
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Jesus Sentenced
'Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged Him. And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe. And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote Him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring Him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in Him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the Man! When the chief priests
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

An Eye-Witness's Account of the Crucifixion
'And He bearing His cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: Where they crucified Him, and two other with Him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

Joseph and Nicodemus
'And after this Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; ... And there came also Nicodemus which at the first came to Jesus by night.'--JOHN xix. 38, 39. While Christ lived, these two men had been unfaithful to their convictions; but His death, which terrified and paralysed and scattered His avowed disciples, seems to have shamed and stung them into courage. They came now, when they must have known
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI

The Fifth Word
"I thirst."--JOHN XIX. 28. This is the only utterance of our Blessed Lord in which He gave expression to His physical sufferings. Not least of these was that intolerable thirst which is the invariable result of all serious wounds, as those know well who have ever visited patients in a hospital after they have undergone a surgical operation. In this case it must have been aggravated beyond endurance by exposure to the burning heat of an Eastern sun. This word, then, spoken under such circumstances,
J. H. Beibitz—Gloria Crucis

The Sixth Word
"It is accomplished."--ST. JOHN XIX. 30. 1. What had been accomplished? In the first place, that work which Christ had come into the world to do. All that work may be resumed in a single word, "sacrifice." The Son of God had come for this one purpose, to offer a sacrifice. Here is room for serious misunderstanding. The blood, the pain, the death, were not the sacrifice. Nothing visible was the sacrifice, least of all the physical surroundings of its culminating act. There is only one thing
J. H. Beibitz—Gloria Crucis

The Third Word
"Lady, behold thy son." "Behold thy mother." ST. JOHN XIX. 26, 27. In this Word we see the Son of God revealed as human son, and human friend, all the more truly and genuinely human in both relations, because in each and every relation of life, Divine. 1. The first lesson in the Divine Life for us to learn here is the simple, almost vulgarly commonplace one, yet so greatly needing to be learnt, that "charity," which is but a synonym of the Divine Life, "begins at home." Home life is the real test
J. H. Beibitz—Gloria Crucis

The Last Look at Life,
(Passion Sermon.) TEXT: JOHN xix. 30. "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished." THESE greatest and most glorious of the last words -*- of our Saviour on the cross come immediately after those which are apparently of the least significance and importance. The Lord said, "I thirst;" then the moistened sponge was handed to Him; and when He had received the soothing, though not pleasant draught, He cried, "It is finished." And we must not break the connection of these
Friedrich Schleiermacher—Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher

The Shortest of the Seven Cries
As these seven sayings were so faithfully recorded, we do not wonder that they have frequently been the subject of devout meditation. Fathers and confessors, preachers and divines have delighted to dwell upon every syllable of these matchless cries. These solemn sentences have shone like the seven golden candlesticks or the seven stars of the Apocalypse, and have lighted multitudes of men to him who spake them. Thoughtful men have drawn a wealth of meaning from them, and in so doing have arranged
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 24: 1878

The Procession of Sorrow
I. After our Lord Jesus Christ had been formally condemned by Pilate, our text tells us he was led away. I invite your attention to CHRIST AS LED FORTH. Pilate, as we reminded you, scourged our Savior according to the common custom of Roman courts. The lictors executed their cruel office upon his shoulders with their rods and scourges, until the stripes had reached the full number. Jesus is formally condemned to crucifixion, but before he is led away he is given over to the Praetorian guards that
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 9: 1863

Death of Jesus.
Although the real motive for the death of Jesus was entirely religious, his enemies had succeeded, in the judgment-hall, in representing him as guilty of treason against the state; they could not have obtained from the sceptical Pilate a condemnation simply on the ground of heterodoxy. Consistently with this idea, the priests demanded, through the people, the crucifixion of Jesus. This punishment was not Jewish in its origin; if the condemnation of Jesus had been purely Mosaic, he would have been
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

The Third Word from the Cross
In the life of our Lord from first to last there is a strange blending of the majestic and the lowly. When a beam of His divine dignity is allowed to shine out and dazzle us, it is never long before there ensues some incident which reminds us that He is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh; and, contrariwise, when He does anything which impressively brings home to us His humanity, there always follows something to remind us that He was greater than the sons of men. Thus at His birth He was laid
James Stalker—The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ

Objections to Genuineness.
THE most plausible objection to the genuineness of these writings is thus expressed by Dupin: "Eusebius and Jerome wrote an accurate catalogue of each author known to them--with a few obscure exceptions,--and yet never mention the writings of the Areopagite." Great is the rejoicing in the House of the Anti-Areopagites over this PROOF;--but what are the facts? Eusebius acknowledges that innumerable works have not come to him--Jerome disclaims either to know or to give an accurate catalogue either
Dionysius—LETTERS OF DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

And at his Crucifixion, when He Asked a Drink...
And at His crucifixion, when He asked a drink, they gave Him to drink vinegar mingled with gall. (Cf. Joh. xix. 29) And this was declared through David. They gave gall to my meat, and in any thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. [262]
Irenæus—The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

Inward Confirmation of the Veracity of the Scriptures
We are living in a day when confidence is lacking; when skepticism and agnosticism are becoming more and more prevalent; and when doubt and uncertainty are made the badges of culture and wisdom. Everywhere men are demanding proof. Hypotheses and speculations fail to satisfy: the heart cannot rest content until it is able to say, "I know." The demand of the human mind is for definite knowledge and positive assurance. And God has condescended to meet this need. One thing which distinguishes Christianity
Arthur W. Pink—The Divine Inspiration of the Bible

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