John Chapter Eighteen: The Sin
By: Deji Yesufu
One of the leading rules for businesses in the secular world is that investors must know who their target customers are. You must identify your customers, and then provide solution to their problems. When you have a solution to a problem that many people have, you are very likely to succeed in business. Because it means that a lot of people will patronize what you are offering. Jesus sometimes resorted to secular thinking to make his point clear, and I think that we can employ the same method even here. There is a problem of sin in our world. The challenge however is that many people do not think that they are sinners. The default thinking in most people is self-righteousness: “I am not as bad as that other person…” So, because the world cannot see their sins, they do not see a reason for a Savior. The bigger challenge is that the Church, which is supposed to point out the sin of the world to them, are themselves sometimes blind to their sins. We read the stories of the Pharisees and the Sadducees in the Bible, and we fail to realize that God put the stories of these people right there in the New Testament to warn the church against the sin of Pharisaism. One lesson Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan must take away from its study of the book of John is that we, Christians, are sinners; and that the default mindset of many of us Christians is Pharisaism.
It is therefore fitting to enter the study of the eighteenth chapter of John with this behind our minds. The chapter opens with the betrayal of Jesus by Judas. Many things hurt in this life, but very few hurt as much as people betraying the trust that you have vested on them. There is a sense that God had even prepared Jesus for the betrayal of Judas by ensuring that the Psalmist wrote copiously about it. Also, Jesus knew ahead of time that Judas will betray him; but all that did not diminish the pain that it would have caused our Lord. Now, the interesting fact that we see in this chapter is that as bad as Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was, it was not as bad as the other betrayals that will occur in the same chapter. There were two other betrayals that we often do not see. There was the betrayal by the Jews and there was the betrayal of Jesus by Peter.
The Jews’ betrayal of Jesus was exemplified by the words of Caiaphas in verse 14, where it was said that he had advised the Jews that it was expedient that one person should die lest the whole nation perish. It was a word he spoke by the power of the Holy Spirit because he occupied an office in Israel. It was also a word that reminds us of what happened between Joseph and his brothers in the book of Genesis. The brothers of Joseph did not only betray him, they also sold him as a slave. But all of that situation was leading up to the redemption that Joseph will bring to the nation of Israel. In other words, if Israel will know redemption, they would have to betray their redeemer. Jesus was therefore a type of Joseph. So, while Judas had betrayed Jesus, the Jews also betrayed him. But, perhaps, the most painful betrayal was the one that came from Peter. When Peter was asked if he was a disciple of Jesus, he denied it flatly. These three betrayals portray a stark fact: all men are sinners – regardless of whether they are in the church or in the world. And it is just fitting that that Jesus Christ will reveal the sin of all humanity to them even as he heads to the cross to redeem us from our sins. As we grapple with the sinfulness of all men, we come in contact with three relevant questions that greeted the trial of Jesus as he stood before Pilate. In the first question, Pilate asks the Jews what wrong Jesus had committed. In the second instance, Pilate asks Jesus if he was a king. And in the final question, Pilate ask Jesus what truth was. The last two questions are what is relevant for this essay.
It is not clear why Pilate asked Jesus if he was the King of the Jews in verse 33. There is nothing in the context of that scripture that warranted that question. There is, however, a probability that Pilate saw something regale about Jesus even in the manner he came face to face with his accusers. The Romans of Jesus’ day where quite developed in their system of governance. Rome had succeeded the nation of Greece as a superpower in the then world. The Greeks had conquered the Persians, and had been led by the brilliant administrator and military conqueror – Alexander the Great. A Roman soldier knew royalty when he saw one. And it appears that Jesus’ silence throughout his trial was speaking loudly to those who were discerning. Therefore, Pilate put two and two together and reasoned that obviously the Jews were envious of Jesus because of his innate royalty. He however needed to be sure of what kind of King Jesus was so that his own kingdom would not be threatened. When he learns from Jesus’ words that his kingdom was from another place, his mind was put at rest. He then continues to regard Jesus as the King of the Jews; although to spite the Jews further, he decides to treat their king spitefully and ultimately crucify him.
The third question was also from Pilate when he asked Jesus: “What is Truth?” This was also a relevant question that a Roman society was interested in. We must not forget that quite a number of systems of government that we practice today, like democracy, where developed by the Greeks and the Romans. There had been Philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who all debated the question of ultimate truth. So, when the “King of the Jews” said he has come to bear the truth (verse 37), Pilate asked him, rather sarcastically, what is truth. He did not wait for the answer to that question before heading out to the Jews to make a demand of them. The events that will follow that question will reveal the truth that Jesus Christ came to our world to bear.
As Pilate confronts the Jews, he reminds them that this is the Passover, and that there is a custom they have where he releases a prisoner to them. Would they rather have Jesus back, or a condemned murderer – Barrabas. The Jews cry out that they want Barrabas. That, my readers, is the truth Jesus came to bear. John chapter eighteen would have us see that the story of redemption is the story of substitution. The righteous taking the place of a sinner; the righteous taking the sin of the sinner, and giving his righteousness to the sinner; the righteous being condemned in the place of the sinner. In other words, there would be no redemption except there is a felon to redeem. The Pharisees cannot see redemption because they cannot see their sins. The truly blessed person is the person who has sin. It is only a sinner that needs a Saviour. The Savior takes the place of the sinner. In a crude way, we can conclude like this: it is better to be a sinner, than to be righteous; because only sinners can experience redemption.
The Church must see the sin that Jesus Christ came to our world to redeem men from. The way the Church will see this sin is by recognizing it first in themselves, finding redemption from that sin, and then extending a similar grace to the world. A Church that does not know the story of redemption in a practical sense, cannot extend redemption to the world. The failure of the Churches today has been self-righteousness. When we realize that are sinners – saved by grace; when we understand that we all betrayed Jesus; when we see that we are all Barrabas, we will understand redemption, and we will not cease to tell its story to the world.
Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached on [email protected]
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