Luke 22

Luke 22:63-23

Section 2. (Luke 22:63-71; Luke 23:1-25.)Judgment without judgment. We are now to see the Son of God before the judgment-seat of man. Luke is briefer here than any of the Gospels. The attempts of the false witnesses before the Jewish tribunal are entirely ignored, as well as the adjuration of the high priest. We have simply the Lord’s affirmation for Himself of who He is, which is sufficient for their purpose: any serious inquiry as to the truth they do not mean. Before Pilate we have only the simple fact of His acquittal of the charge preferred; spite of which He is delivered up to the people’s will. It is a judgment without judgment -without the poorest semblance of right.

The reference to Herod is peculiar to Luke; but he merely scoffs, and is met on the Lord’s part by absolute silence. He is not in any place of authority that calls for recognition, as with Pilate and the Jewish high priest, and in his character there is nothing that can in the least measure claim it. He is past even reproof. On the whole, Luke, following the other synoptists, seems to give simply the result morally of that of which they have given the history. The guilt of pursuing the Lord to death is that of Israel, Pilate guiltily yielding to them, indeed; and Herod being but the sign of how low Israel had fallen; even though, nay, even because himself (born of an Edomite father and a Samaritan mother,) no real Israelite.

1. As is everywhere apparent, the Jewish question was the supreme one of the Person of the Christ, -the fundamental question for every soul. Here also the fundamental witness is His own. As He stands before us, -as we see Him in every circumstance and relation of life, -who is so worthy to be believed as He? Here, then; we have His testimony, the “Faithful and True”; and it is in faithfulness as in truth that He renders it. A passage peculiar to Luke points out this: for, when they ask, “Art Thou the Christ? tell us,” He can say with assurance, “If I tell you, ye will not believe; and if I also ask you, ye will not answer Me, nor let Me go.” It was in fact the incriminating question; and since they asked it for an evil purpose, why should He give them the answer that they sought? But this does not influence Him. What they will make of it is for them to decide; He will not on that account refuse the testimony of such unspeakable importance to them. He is in their hands, for them to work their cruel will upon Him; yet only to bring Him out of His present humiliation, and set Him free for the glory before Him. “Henceforth shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.” They understand the claim and challenge it: “Art Thou the Son of God, then?” they ask. “Ye say it: for I am,” He answers. He is condemned, not at the mouth of other witnesses, but His own.
2. He is carried before Pilate, charged with the notoriously false charge of forbidding tribute to Caesar: this based upon the truth that He is Christ a King. Pilate puts the question to Him, “Art Thou the King of the Jews?” to which John gives the full answer. Luke simply gives His affirmative reply, and the outcome of the examination, in which Pilate clears Him of all that would involve a crime against Caesar; from which judgment he never recedes. When he sentences Him at last to the death of the cross, it is with the carefully maintained acknowledgement that he is sacrificing an innocent man.
3. The scene with Herod is peculiar to Luke. Pilate sends Him to him, hoping for something from the ruler from whose jurisdiction Jesus has come, which may settle a case made troublesome by the persistence of the people. Herod has got over his fear of Christ, and is glad to have the opportunity of seeing Him, hoping even to see Him do some “sign” in his presence. His conscience more and more hardened by his evil course, he evidently regards the Lord simply as a magician; such as was Simon the sorcerer in Samaria afterwards, and who would be sure to take the opportunity to impress such an audience with proofs of his power. He finds indeed a sign, such as he had not looked for, a Man silent and unmoved, answering nothing to his questions, nor to the accusations of the chief priests and scribes, who, fearing the effect upon Herod, vehemently accuse Him. There is not even a word of warning or rebuke, but only that unbroken silence so much more terrible. The unhappy man answers it but with mockery. Arraying Him in a brilliant robe, perhaps that of a candidate for honors, he sends the Lord back to Pilate, as if to intimate that such claims as these merited no more serious consideration. With this Pilate and Herod are made friends again: they had before been at enmity. They are often represented as united by their common enmity to Christ; but enmity is too strong a term: He had not in fact been enough to them even to draw out enmity. He was to them, as with so many, a mere circumstance in a day’s history, with Pilate an annoying one; with Herod, the possible material for amusement which it had failed to yield. Both men had enough of scepticism in them to make it impossible to give themselves to investigate a difficult problem, as to which the cost was much more certain than the profit. Their friendships were probably much less real than their enmities; but both were in a world where Christ was not. or an uncertain speculation at the most. Would that one could believe it an uncommon case.
4. The matter is again upon Pilate’s hands, however, who has just enough conscience and enough guilt of his own; to make him unwilling to burden himself with the guilt of others. These miserable Jews too, whom he despised and hated, but who held him by that formidable reminder of his accountability to Caesar, who was near and real, whatever might be thought of God. So he weakens and vacillates, -makes it not a question of righteousness as at first, but of mercy, -puts it thus into the hands of the Jews themselves whose malignity even he cannot understand, -Barabbas or Jesus? Barabbas? then they must tell him what to do with Jesus, this man in whom no evil has been found: crucify him? surely impossible; but he is now helplessly in their hands. With a last vain effort to have the guilt wholly theirs, he delivers up the Man whose innocency he has so openly declared to the death of the slave, of the criminal, and the curse of God (Deuteronomy 21:23).