Framing Jesus
John 19: Beholding the Man Who Is God and King
Dear readers, it is Friday, and we are ready for John 19.
This one hurt me. This chapter, this account, always gets me. In our present sociopolitical climate, it hit me especially hard.
I pray that you will make certain you are following Jesus rather than a caricature of Jesus or a Jesus made in your own image. Follow Jesus. Do not put your faith in the institutions of men or in the doctrines and traditions of men.
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Framing Jesus
John 19: Beholding the Man Who Is God and King
Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!
(John 19:4-5)
Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. He had already scourged Him and allowed the soldiers to strike Him, crown Him with thorns, and clothe Him in purple. Then Pilate brought that beaten man before the crowd as an absurd king and said, “Behold the man.”
Pilate framed the truth in an absurd lie. Jesus was a man, and He was a King, but Pilate presented Him as an impotent earthly king who posed no serious threat to Rome. Look at Him. Really look at Him. He is absurd. He is not potent enough to be a potentate.
Because of a lack of recognition, people are manipulated into rejecting Jesus by accepting a caricature of Jesus. Humanity has always changed God into man’s image and responded to the character it created.
The Lie Was in the Framing
The Jewish rulers wanted Jesus dead because they understood what He claimed. He made Himself equal with God and claimed to be the Son of God, the Messiah, and the King of Israel (John 5:18; John 19:7). Men had already shown that they would take Him by force and make Him king if His power served the earthly kingdom they expected (John 6:15).
Rome had no interest in executing a teacher because Jewish rulers called His doctrine false. Rome acted against sedition, tax resistance, political unrest, and rival kings. The rulers altered their theological accusation into a political accusation calculated to manipulate Rome into killing Him.
And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.
(Luke 23:2)
The accusation was politically explosive. Rome had already put down uprisings, resistance to Roman taxation had already produced unrest, and Barabbas was sitting in prison for an insurrection involving murder (Mark 15:7). Pilate heard accusations concerning tribute, kingship, and national corruption in a province troubled by rebellion.
The accusation contained a seed of truth. Jesus was Christ the King, but He was nothing like the seditious earthly king they presented to Pilate. Jesus commanded men to render unto Caesar the things that belonged to Caesar, so the charge that He forbade tribute was an outright lie (Luke 20:25). The lie existed in the way they presented His kingship.
They altered their theological accusation into a political accusation of sedition and presented Rome with a caricature of Jesus in order to manipulate Pilate into killing Him. The rulers presented Jesus as a king too dangerous to live. Pilate answered them by presenting a king too impotent to bother with killing.
Pilate was a coward. He wanted to release an innocent man without paying the political price, and when the rulers threatened his standing with Caesar, he chose self-preservation (John 19:12). His ceremonial handwashing did not remove his guilt, and the greater sin of the men who delivered Jesus to him did not make Pilate innocent (Matthew 27:24; John 19:11).
The comparison sounds absurd because it is absurd. In one narrow and technical respect, Pilate gave Jesus more credit than the Jews did: when he heard that Jesus had made Himself the Son of God, Pilate was at least afraid (John 19:8). That earns Pilate no credit. The devils believe and tremble, and Pilate still delivered Jesus to be crucified (James 2:19).
Another Jesus
Pilate and the rulers used different caricatures, yet both placed a false character before their audience and called that character Jesus.
And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
(Romans 1:23-25)
The liberal establishment still says, “Here is your Savior. Here is your King. Here is the person you are supposed to follow, and let us tell you what He would do.” Then it presents a Jesus who blesses the progressive moral program, approves homosexual unions, treats moral judgment as hatred, and possesses no authority to condemn the people invoking His name.
That Jesus may be described as compassionate and powerful, but he has been stripped of everything that makes kingship potent. He cannot punish evil, protect the innocent, enforce borders, exclude rebellion, or govern the people presenting him. Pilate put Jesus in a purple robe and crown of thorns. The liberal establishment dresses its caricature in political slogans.
The same establishment presents another caricature when it speaks about the Jesus revealed in Scripture. His authority becomes hatred, His exclusivity becomes extremism, His judgment becomes oppression, and His commands become a threat to public order. The acceptable Jesus is impotent, while the Jesus of Scripture is presented as dangerous.
Accepting a caricature of Jesus does not always mean following it. Some accept the caricature as Jesus and follow a false lord. Others make the same mistake, dismiss Him as an impotent absurdity, and reject Christianity as a whole. Both have rejected the real Jesus. One rejects Him through substitution, the other through dismissal.
For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
(2 Corinthians 11:4)
A man can receive another Jesus. He can worship, pray, attend church, speak religious language, and still follow a false lord. Another man can look at the same caricature, conclude that Christianity is absurd, and walk away from religion altogether.
The safeguard is recognition. The sheep follow the Shepherd because they know His voice, and they flee from strangers because the strangers do not sound like Him.
And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
(John 10:4-5)
You do not have to know sacramentalism, modalism, Arminianism, antinomianism, hyper-preterism, postmillennialism, premillennialism, amillennialism, dispensational premillennialism, or any other “’ism.” You do not have to know how to defeat every doctrine of man. You have to recognize the truth, and anything that is not true must be rejected.
I remember Jed Clampett explaining how he carved Granny out of a stick. He looked at the stick and cut away everything that did not look like Granny. You do not have to know everything about every caricature of Jesus. You have to know Jesus well enough to see what does not look like Him.
The Vacuum Will Be Filled
Rejecting Jesus reaches beyond the individual.
Righteousness exalts a nation, while sin reproaches any people (Proverbs 14:34).
When a nation is manipulated into rejecting the real Jesus, it weakens the Christian morality that governed its households, laws, duties, and public conduct.
The factions on the left can come together against the Christian West because they agree that the West is bad and a Christian nation is bad, even though they want different governments afterward. The secular left, progressive religion, LGBTQ activism, and Islam can stand together while Christianity remains the common enemy. Their agreement ends when somebody has to govern what remains.
The secular left has enough political and cultural power to destabilize the Christian West, but it does not have the requisite force to maintain the society that remains. It can clear the ground, but it cannot hold the ground. It will create a vacuum, and Islam will fill it.
Britain supplies a warning. King Charles III still bears the formal title Defender of the Faith, yet before becoming king he publicly said that he preferred “Defender of Faith, not the Faith.” The Christian title remains while the office is being understood as a defense of faith in general. How much longer will it be before the formal title follows the change already taking place within it?
Islam and the secular left can cooperate against Christianity while holding incompatible views of sexual morality, individualism, and hedonism. Those factions only need to cooperate long enough to weaken Christianity. Once the Christian order has fallen, Islam possesses the requisite force to impose its own stable system through violence and coercion.
Like many things, what happens in the nation can be seen in miniature in the life of the individual. A man who rejects the real Jesus does not become neutral. Some other religion, whether secular or spiritual, will fill the vacuum, and some other lord will take the throne.
Conclusion
Pilate said, “Behold the man,” and presented a beaten King whose power appeared to have been taken away. The rulers presented an insurgent King who threatened Caesar. Both caricatures contained enough truth to make the lie useful, and both were designed to manipulate the people who received them.
The same work continues. One caricature gives people a false lord to follow, while another gives them an impotent absurdity or dangerous fanatic to dismiss. Both paths reject the real Jesus, and both leave a throne empty.
The nation and the man face the same consequence after rejecting the real Jesus. The throne will not remain empty. The duty is to know Jesus well enough to recognize Him before somebody places a caricature before you and says, “Behold the man.”
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
(2 Timothy 2:15)