Classic: Jesus Barabbas (Part 2)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry. I am your host, and glad to be. I don't know, we've got to be coming up on show 1 ,000, don't we?

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Today on No Compromise Radio, I'd like to continue my discussion of the Roman trial, Jesus before Pilate, which leads into the discussion of Jesus Barabbas.

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Now, older manuscripts, some have just Barabbas in Matthew chapter 27, verse 16 and 17, and some of them have

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Jesus Barabbas, and they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas, or Jesus Barabbas.

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So when they gathered, Pilate said to them, whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called

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Christ. Now in this particular Bible that I have in front of me, and this is, let's see which one this is,

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ESV, and I believe this is a large print. You know, the thing is, large prints aren't really that large anymore, and so everything

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I do now has to be with glosses. And we're going to look at this

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Barabbas passage. But since I'm fascinated with Jesus before Pilate, then moving into Barabbas, we're going to continue on No Compromise Radio today talking a little bit about Jesus before Pilate.

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And Pilate was a really bad man, yet at the beginning of his trial of Jesus, he acts with integrity.

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He does the right thing, and I think this is because God, through the Gospels, want us to see what a farce this gospel trial was—I shouldn't say gospel trial,

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I looked outside for a second—this trial of Jesus was. And so Pilate says, are you king of the

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Jews? The you is very emphatic in Matthew chapter 27 verse 11. Are you the king of the

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Jews? One quick glance at Jesus would tell Pilate that this is no king, no zealot, no terrorist, no guy who is running around trying to take down the

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Roman government. He's not the leader of any kind of revolt. Are you the king of the

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Jews? Said with a lot of irony. Now certainly the word

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Jew would be all the Jews, but sometimes that Greek word for Jews means those who are living in Judea.

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And so either way, are you the king of all the Jews, or are you the king of Judea? And by the way,

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I'm the governor of Judea. And so you can see the little play there. Are you the king of the

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Jews? Jesus said, you have said so. You say so. When Judas asked

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Jesus whether he was the betrayer, you have said so. When Caiaphas asked whether Jesus was the

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Christ, you have said so. And now Pilate asked, are you the king of the

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Jews? You have said so. And the reason why Jesus says this to Judas, to Caiaphas, and now

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Pilate, is because they already know it, or at least they should have known it.

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You have said it. Now to Caiaphas, when he says it in chapter 26, he doesn't explain how the messianic vision and how it differs from that of the

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Sanhedrin. This time he doesn't say anything to Pilate. You have said so.

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You say it. John fills us in a little bit.

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I won't read you all the verses in John chapter 18, verses 33 through 38. By the way, one of the best books you can get that you will lose forever.

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This is hard to do the show today. Time for Pete's Coffee Break. I said to Pete's Coffee on the phone one day that I'm a proud sponsor of their show and they get free press.

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We've had many converts, and I wanted to have some free mug or something. They wouldn't send me anything.

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I'm sure they don't want to have anything to do with No Compromise Radio. One of the sermons they dug up 15 to 20 years ago said something about someone and something.

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I'm here to make much of Jesus. Well, back to the account here in Matthew chapter 27.

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You are saying it. Now remember here, if Jesus just would have said yes, then what the false teachers said about Jesus being a man that's bad, well then maybe

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Pilate would have taken it that way. On the flip side, Jesus can't say no, he's not a king, right?

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Because he is a king. So there's more to be said, so he gives this cryptic reply, the designation is yours, you say so.

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Verse 12, but when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. The tense is he just kept getting on, accused over and over and over and over, and he doesn't say anything to them.

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He doesn't care about the questions that the Sanhedrin raises. The Sanhedrin just wanted to get him executed, they didn't care about justice or anything else.

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Pilate has an office and Jesus answers that office. And the issue here is

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Jesus' silence before these false teachers, but he does answer

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Pilate some. Then Pilate said to him, do you not hear how many things they testify against you?

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You know, you're going to get executed if you don't speak up for yourself, and they're throwing a broad net to try to catch you in as many different things as they can, hoping one sticks.

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You better answer for yourself, but he, Jesus, gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.

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Don't you think that most prisoners would be very, very loquacious, very vocal?

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They would talk a lot to try to get out of their execution, but not

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Jesus, not even a single word. And so how did the governor, Pontius Pilate, respond?

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He was greatly amazed. This is not a normal man, this is not a normal trial, nothing about this is normal.

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Earlier uses in Matthew for to be surprised was when people were favorably impressed with something even used of Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 8.

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Pilate was very impressed, and these people are stirring up Pilate's attitude toward Jesus?

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Well, not yet, not yet. The people were saying he stirs up the people, the false teachers were saying that, but Pilate so far holding firm.

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So Jesus now goes to Herod Antipas, and now back to Pilate.

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Matthew 27, 15, now at the feast, the governor was accustomed to release for the...man this is hard today,

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I don't know why...to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted.

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So we've got Passover, festival, and in the old days they might release someone as a measure of goodwill.

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For the people, you've got the occupiers and they do something nice for those who are occupied.

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Now we don't have any firm tradition that says during Passover this was what was done in Judea.

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But in the Mishnah, the oral interpretation of the scriptures by the Jews right around 200

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AD compiled, they do say, for one whom they have promised to bring out of prison.

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So we have things that are close to that. The governor did not select, the crowd selected at the

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Passover, and they get amnesty. And again, we have some other historical sources that talk about amnesty,

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Archelaus, Albinius, and other things found in Papyrus, Florentinius. See, doesn't that make me sound smart?

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I just kind of quote these Latinized words. Mark says, whom they requested. So here we have a nice goodwill gesture that of course serves the

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Romans, and I'm sure Pilate thinks they're going to let this innocent guy go.

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Verse 16 says, and they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas, son of Abba, son of father.

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That's the Aramaic name. The Grecianized name is

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Barabbas, and here we have this man called Notorious in the

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ESV. Notable is probably the best translation, but he was known for either good things or bad things, and in this particular case, known for bad things, so they say

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Notorious, called Barabbas. Now, the text can either read Jesus Barabbas or just Barabbas.

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Now, what most likely happened is, and I can't be sure, but we have people who are scribes who are reverently going through the passage, and now they know about the story of Jesus, and they're copying one text to the next text to the next text, and they see

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Jesus Barabbas, and who wants to have somebody called Jesus Barabbas? That's like having somebody called

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Jesus Judas, and so maybe they don't write that in. I can't be certain that Jesus Barabbas is the right text.

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Probably the earliest manuscripts don't have it, so that there is some argument, but there's a good likelihood that this man's name could be

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Jesus Barabbas. What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ in verse 22?

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That makes sense because there's another Jesus. There's a Jesus called Barabbas, and there's a

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Jesus who's called Christ in verse 22. What do I do with Jesus who's called Christ? This man

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Barabbas is son of the father. Now, sometimes the greatest rabbis were called father, and so we have maybe a man who is the son of a father or son of a rabbi, and if he's trained in his father's business, he knows that the business happens to be religion.

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I'm not trying to call that a business, but you get my point. He knows about the law, and he knows about Israel. He loves

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Israel, and maybe this is what spun him into nationalism and nationalistic fervor and trying to deliver

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Israel from the oppression of the Romans. He is notorious.

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One man called him, Nolan called him, a big fish. So he's the big fish, and he is the notorious big fish, the notable big fish.

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That's what King James translates it as, notable prisoner. He's a freedom fighter, most likely.

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He is well known, and he is a bad apple. Who knows? He could be a folk hero to many people.

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He's now in jail, but he served possibly as a Robin Hood type of character.

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It says in Mark that he was imprisoned with the insurrectionist who had committed murder in the insurrection, and the crowd came up and began to ask

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Pilate to do as he usually did for them. So he was involved in some type of disorder or rioting and murder as well.

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Luke 23 -25, he had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder.

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John says that he also was a robber. So here we have a man,

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Barabbas, son of the father, and he was hunted down, most likely by Rome.

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Well, he was hunted down by robe. See how hard this is? By Rome. Some people just came to the church, and I'm just looking outside, and I'm distracted.

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Hunted down by Rome as a criminal. These are the kind of people they didn't like because they were dagger bearers and patriots and fanatic,

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Jerusalem's most wanted. Interestingly, Peter in his sermon in Acts chapter 3 says, but you have denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the author of life, whom

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God raised from the dead, to this we are witnesses. So guilty of murder.

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Verse 17 of Matthew 27, so when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, whom do you want me to release for you?

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Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ? Which Jesus do you want?

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And here Pilate sees his way out. Certainly they're going to pick Jesus, aren't they?

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Which Jesus shall we send free? The one called

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Messiah or the one called Barabbas? Which Jesus do you want?

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One son of the father or the other son of the father? Verse 18 says, for he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.

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He knew the scoop. Pilate knew that the false teachers were jealous of the success of Jesus.

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He knew that if you are an ordinary person, you would side with Jesus, the one who was the

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Messiah. Verse 19, besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word for him, here's a little interruption, have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.

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Well, while the stuff was going on, she must have taken a nap and she thinks this is urgent.

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She has to go tell him some information while he's in the middle of a very important issue.

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And again, as I said last week, a tradition calls her Procula and sometimes spelled with two

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L's, sometimes spelled with one L, and she had a dream. Now back in those days, and even our day too, but especially those days when there was a dream, people took that as something that was very important.

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And we have this higher up Roman lady trying to intercede on behalf of Jesus, the

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Galilean, the homeless Galilean. And so she goes to her husband and says, don't have anything to do with this innocent man.

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Morrison says of Procula, the wife of Pilate, it was she who stiffened the

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Roman instinct for justice in Pilate. At a moment when he was tempted from personal considerations to humor the prejudices of the

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Jewish Camarilla and commit Jesus on their recommendation alone. While the stimulus lasted, his handling of this difficult and perplexing case was well nigh perfect.

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It was only as the stimulus faded against the grinding and growing opposition of the

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Jewish party that the threat of Caesar's intervention became paramount. And he ended as he had intended to begin by delivering the prisoner into their hands.

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Pilate was reluctant to commit Jesus to the executioner's hands.

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And here we have Procula trying to stop this whole thing. Now in legend, in Christian legend, this lady became a

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Christian saint called Claudia Procula. Isn't that fascinating? There's a dream, or we interpret dreams.

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She was thinking other people in Matthew had been guided by dreams too. The Magi and Joseph in Matthew chapter one, remember?

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And now we have the wife of Pilate trying to intervene.

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Doesn't that just increase the guilt of the religious Jewish leaders? Hey, the

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Gentile woman can figure out Jesus is innocent. Pilate can figure out

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Jesus is innocent. The man on the street can figure out Jesus is innocent. The reader of scripture can figure out that Jesus is innocent.

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Yet it says in verse 20, now the chief priest and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy

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Jesus. Public opinion pushed and manipulated by leaders.

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Leon Morris said the crowd was not left to make up its mind by itself. Now, some of the people probably have heard, had heard

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Jesus teach, teach in the synagogue. Maybe they saw some of the miracles, but I think this is probably a different crowd.

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At any rate, this crowd was stirred up. Who wants to let

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Jesus Barabbas loose? That's like letting the prisoners out.

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That's like letting murderers out of jail. So you've got to really rile up the crowd to let somebody like this out.

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The governor again said to them, which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said, Barabbas, the people's choice.

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So Pilate asked for their choice. Times up, they cried out again saying, not this man, but Barabbas, John 18, 40.

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Now Barabbas was a robber. Don't you like how scripture does that? Rahab, the harlot. Rahab, the harlot.

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Ruth, the Moabite. Pilate said to them, then what shall I do with Jesus who is called

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Christ? They all said, let him be crucified. There's not a dissenting voice here.

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It's unanimous. Let him be crucified. Matthew talks about the crucifixion six times in this chapter alone.

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Crucified, crucified, crucified, crucified, crucified, crucified. And he said, why, what evil has he done?

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But they shouted all the more, let him be crucified. Not too good of an attempt on Pilate to try to get

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Jesus off the hook. The crowd is pro -Barabbas. The crowd is anti -Jesus.

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And so the deal is done. So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water, washed his hands before the crowd saying,

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I am innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourself. Frustrated, can't get this thing done.

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Play the political game. It doesn't seem to work. And I'm washing my hands as a gesture to say

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I'm innocent. He knew this is going to be the murder and execution of an innocent man.

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And so I want my hands cleaned from this. Deuteronomy 21 talks about washing hands as a sign or as a gesture to say that I am innocent from this.

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Pilate, though, at the end of the day, he could have said release or crucify. So he cannot get around being responsible for that.

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Now, in this next section, it says, and all the people answered, his blood be on us and on our children.

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People try to make that into all kinds of anti -Semitic issues, so much so that Pope Benedict XVI in his 2011 book,

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Jesus of Nazareth, was questioning if this passage was even historical or not. Did this really even happen?

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Now, I don't want to say much about all this in terms of anti -Semitic issues.

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These Jewish leaders and what has happened, 70 AD probably tells the story as much as I'd like to tell it.

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Mr. Krumacher said, to think that Pilate thought that there was any kind of water that could have possibly cleansed his hands from the guilt of the murder of the

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Lord Jesus. There indeed is a stream that cleanses from guilt, but Pilate was ignorant of us.

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His blood be on us and our children, the people said as well. Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio.

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I'm trying to figure out how to end the show. Pretty amazing course of events. Pretty amazing that Pilate, governor, lets other people govern.

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Governor, governor, governor, governor. Matthew 27, verse 11, stood before the governor and the governor asked him, right?

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The governor. Verse 15, now at the feast, the governor. There's no governing going on here.

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The people are being governed by themselves, by the religious leaders, but not by the governor.

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Well, here's what I think I'd like to do. The text says, then he released for them Barabbas and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.

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I think I'm going to do one more show on this topic and here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you some practical lessons about the

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Barabbas substitution. The first man that Jesus died for and the only man Jesus died for physically.

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Barabbas gets off the hook and Jesus dies in his place. Barabbas the condemned,

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Jesus the innocent, Jesus takes the place of Barabbas and we call that substitution.

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Now in theology, it's called penal substitution where Jesus dies in our place, Calvary, and so we'll talk about that next time.

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Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. Jesus Barabbas or Jesus the Messiah. BBCChurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.