.The Roman Ways
Jesus was born about 4 B.C. (see Anno Domini). You may remember that after the wise men announced the birth of Jesus to King Herod I, the king ordered that all baby boys in Bethlehem, who were two years of age or less, should be destroyed. Ironically, Herod himself died shortly after issuing this malicious decree.
Augustus Caesar honored Herod's will that stated that his kingdom was to be divided between his three surviving sons. The will gave Antipas a quarter of the realm, (the territory around Galilee), Philip a quarter of the realm (the area around Traconitis and later, Ituraea), and Archelaus the remaining half of the realm (Judea and Samaria). Each son that governed a quarter of the realm was called a "tetarch" (or a ruler of a fourth, see Luke 3:1), and Archelaus was called an "ethnarch" (a ruler of a province).
With the passage of time, Augustus did not think Archelaus was fit to be a king, so he removed Archelaus from his throne about ten years later. Archelaus was exiled and the province of Judea became a third-world Roman province that governors ruled. From A.D. 6 to the Jewish revolt in A.D. 66, governors that came from Rome's middle class ruled Judea. (The exception to this was the brief reign of Herod Agrippa I. (A.D. 41-44))
The first duty of a Roman governor was to maintain order and keep the peace according to the provisions of Roman law. Governors typically had a contingency of Roman soldiers at their command and they used them when necessary to keep order. Governors were also responsible for imposing and collecting taxes for Caesar which was no small task given the intense animosity between the occupied territories and the heavy hand of Rome.
Then as now, people who had political ambitions coveted the office of governor, and yet, with all its trappings, the office was not very glamorous. A Roman governor walked a very fine line. He was trapped between keeping peace in a province who hated to pay taxes to Rome, while simultaneously, meeting all of Caesar�s demands. If the governor offended the people, it often caused an uprising. When this occurred, Caesar would hear about it and question the governor�s ability to keep the peace.
If the governor tried to please the people by softening Rome�s demands, Caesar would fire him in a heart beat and put him to death for insubordination. So, to be a governor in Jesus� day may have been a powerful job, but it required a delicate political balance.
Pontius Pilate
History says that Pilate was the fifth governor of Judea. Most governors served two to four years, but Pilate served as governor of Judea for about eleven years. (A.D. 26-36) We have no information about Pilate before he arrived in Judea as governor. If it were not for a few hours with Jesus on one fateful morning, Pilate would have disappeared long ago into the silent hallway of history. Josephus indicates that Pilate�s career in Judea ended abruptly when he agitated his subjects one time too many. (Antiquities 18:85-89)
As the story goes, a messianic figure rose in Samaria and formed a group of enthusiastic followers. Problems became serious when they armed themselves in an attempt to deliver their people from the hands of the Romans and establish God�s kingdom. To prove his assumed identity as the Messiah, the messianic figure invited his followers to follow him to the summit of Mt. Gerizim, a mountain the Samaritans considered a holy site. (See Deuteronomy 11:29.)
He claimed that Moses had buried sacred vessels on top of the mountain and he knew where they were. (Evidently he believed if the sacred vessels were revealed, it would legitimize his messianic claims.) Pilate learned of this development and sent a platoon of Roman soldiers to block their ascent up the mountain. This led to a bloody confrontation and the Romans killed several Samaritans in the melee that followed.
The Samaritan Council formally complained to Caesar about Pilate�s abusive use of power and Tiberius summoned Pilate to Rome. Pilate left for Rome, but reached the city after Tiberius had died. The new emperor, Gaius, did not send Pilate back to Judea and Pilate suddenly disappeared from the radar screen of history.
Eusebius, a spiritual counselor to Emperor Constantine in the fourth century A.D., supports a legend that Pilate committed suicide during the reign of Gaius. The legend maintains that Pilate committed suicide due to his remorse for what he did to Jesus. (Hist. Eccl. 2.7.1)
History does not reveal if Pilate became a born-again Christian. However, it is interesting that Christian churches in northern Africa years later declared Pilate a saint. In fact, Tertullian claims that Pilate was a Christian at heart in a letter he wrote to Tiberius. (Apology 21) I believe that Pilate had a complete change of heart after meeting Jesus, and his actions in the drama you are about to read are quite revealing, when put in context.
Even though we do not actually know what happened to Pilate in the end, we do know what happened on Friday morning, April 7, A.D. 30, when a long sequence of events brought an unsuspecting Pilate face to face with God. All four gospels record descriptions of this unrehearsed confrontation in all four gospels. This will be the focus of this study because there are profound end time parallels between the events that transpired in Pilate�s judgment hall and events that will happen in courtrooms all over the world during the Great Tribulation.
Note: To review Pilate�s experience, I have taken excerpts from the gospels and attempted to put them in chronological order. You may note some redundancy since each gospel describes the events with a slightly different perspective. It is my hope that this study will reveal something about Pilate that you may not have noticed before. Insertions in brackets [] and italics are mine and are added for clarity or emphasis.
John Begins the Story
"Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas [the High Priest] to the palace of the Roman governor [Pilate]. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out [of his palace] to them and asked, �What charges are you bringing against this man?� �If he were not a criminal,� they replied, �we would not have handed him over to you.� Pilate said, �Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.� �But we have no right to execute anyone,� the Jews objected. This [response] happened so that the words Jesus had spoken [Luke 18:31-33] indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.
Pilate then went back inside the palace, [he] summoned Jesus and asked him, �Are you the king of the Jews?� �Is that your own idea,� Jesus asked, �or did others talk to you about me?� �Am I a Jew [that I should care]?� Pilate replied. �It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?� Jesus said, �My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.� [So!] �You are a king, then!� said Pilate. Jesus answered, �You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.� �What is truth?� [a puzzled] Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, �I find no basis for a charge against him.� " (John 18:28-38)
