(REFLECTIONS ON John 18:28-40)

In today’s Scripture, Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea asked Jesus a very important question, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Why was this question so important? This question was so crucial because it determined whether Jesus was guilty of treason against Rome. Everything in Jesus’ trial was riding on this single issue.

When Pilate told the Jewish leaders earlier to take Jesus and judge Him by their own Jewish Law, they replied, “But we have no right to execute anyone.” The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus dead, they wanted Him to be executed, and in order to do that they needed to convince Pilate that He was claiming to be the king of the Jews, and a threat to Rome. 

The Jewish leaders needed this to become a political issue, rather than a religious issue. Jesus, however, refused to let the conversation stay political, but turned things around on Pilate asking him if this was his idea, for fear of rebellion, or someone else’s idea rooted in religious accusation. 

Pilate’s response separated himself from the religious, saying, “Am I a Jew?” Jesus then took things to another level saying “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

Jesus took the conversation in a completely different direction, which He often does in the Gospel of John, and turns it from being a religious or political issue, to being a spiritual issue. Jesus talks about the kingdom, not of this world, but God’s kingdom. 

This isn’t about the Jews, not about Rome, but about God. Jesus said to Pilate, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Jesus is the king, and He will reign in His kingdom, the kingdom of truth. Jesus is the king of Truth. 

This then led Pilate to question, “What is truth?” Indeed, what is truth? In the end Pilate found that Jesus was no threat to Rome, because although calling him “the king of the Jews,” Jesus said that His kingdom was not of this world. There was no army, no rebellion, no plan for violence, because the king of the Jews, is the king of truth. 

Brothers and sisters, we also face this question in our life and faith, “what is truth?” Often times we see truth as the physical things of the world. However, throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus uses the things of the world, to talk about the spiritual. Our faith is not just a physical faith, but a spiritual faith, about God’s kingdom, and not just about the physical world.

What is truth? It isn’t the world, the world’s governments, the things of this world, those are not the things that we should put our hope in, and is not the kingdom that Jesus came to rule. Jesus is the king of truth, and the truth is God’s kingdom, it is eternal life, through Jesus Christ, He is the way, the truth, and the life. That is our hope, that is our faith, the kingdom that Jesus is the king of, and the kingdom that we are citizens of.

Pastor Michael Lu
Enduring Word Bible Commentary: John 18