John 18:28-40 The Power of the Cross: The Power of Truth
Can You Handle It?
One of my favorite movie scenes is in the film A Few Good Men. Tom Cruise plays a military lawyer investigating the death of a soldier at a U.S. base in Cuba. Jack Nicholson plays the base commander who may or may not have ordered the disciplinary procedure that led to the soldier’s death.
The iconic scene comes when Cruise gets Nicholson on the witness stand. Cruise badgers Nicholson until the testimony becomes a shouting match. Nicholson says something like: “What is it you want?” Cruise says: “I want the truth!” And Nicholson shoots back: “You can’t handle the truth!”
Our text today calls us to consider whether or not we can handle the truth. It’s John 18:28-40. You can turn there in you Bibles now. We’ll also be putting it on the screen:
28 Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”
30 “If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.”
31 Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”
“But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected. 32 This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.
33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”
35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”
36 Jesus said, “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.”
37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “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.”
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. 39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”
40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.
<<prayer>>
Pilate and Jesus
We are continuing our journey through John’s account of the passion of Jesus. So far we’ve seen that Jesus was arrested in the olive grove and led to the High Priest’s house. It’s the Jewish Religious Authorities who have arranged for Judas to betray Him and they are eager to see Him done away with.
But the Jewish Religious Authorities have a problem. They don’t have the right to execute anyone. They are an occupied nation, under the control of the Roman Empire. So if they want to see Jesus killed, they have to get the Romans involved.
And so they bring Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate, the Roman governor at the time.
Pilate is somebody who shows up in several ancient history books besides the Bible. The picture that emerges of him is of “a morally weak and vacillating man who, like many of the same breed, tried to hide his flaws under shows of stubbornness and brutality.” (Carson, p. 590)
And while the Jewish Religious Authorities didn’t like him much, they needed his help if they wanted to get rid of Jesus. As it says in the text, they had no authority to execute anyone. If they wanted Jesus to die, they needed Pilate’s approval. But, much to their disappointment, Pilate insists on questioning the defendant first.
He takes Jesus into the Palace and interrogates Him. What emerges is an almost surreal scene where—despite being on trial for His life—Jesus challenges Pilate to come to the side of truth.
The climax of their first interview comes in verses 37 and 38:
37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “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.”
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate
Pilate’s question is curt, cynical and dismissive. Clearly he’s not interested in an answer. True to character, Pilate is looking for the politically expedient solution. He’s much less interested in doing what is right than he is in making his problem go away.
But he doesn’t realize how important his question is, or how close he is to the One who could solve all His problems. In fact, in Jesus’ words in verse 37, we can find the answer not only to Pilate’s question, but also to our questions about truth.
So what I would like to do this morning is consider Pilate’s question and three answers that emerge from what Jesus says in verse 37: What is truth? We’re going to see that truth is real, truth is a person, and truth calls for a decision.
THE Truth
First, Jesus wants us to see today that truth is real. There is such a thing as truth—truth that is always the same and holds true for everyone. Truth that everyone should believe.
Jesus says: “In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.
THE truth. Singular. Jesus didn’t come into the world to testify about A truth. He didn’t come to offer one in a buffet line of religious options, so that we could pick and choose what works for us. He came to testify about THE truth. Truth that comes from outside of the world and gives meaning to the world. Truth that holds true in all times and all places. Truth that is unchanging and absolute.
Today, the idea of truth has fallen on hard times. Today, if you claim that there is truth that everyone should believe and follow, you will very likely be considered misguided and immoral. You’ll be told that you should not try to put the monkey of your beliefs on anybody else’s back.
We’re talking about the difference between absolute truth and relative truth. Absolute truth is objective. It’s true all the time, for everybody. Relative truth is subjective. It’s the idea that we all decide for ourselves what’s true and what’s not.
The idea of relative truth is widespread. Polls indicate that as many as ¾ of Americans today do not believe in absolute truth. If pushed, most Americans would say that one person’s standards are just as good as another. We’ll hear phrases like: “There are two sides to every issue” or “Truth depends on your point of view” or--this discussion ender--“What’s true for you may not be true for me.”
That’s not a big deal if you’re talking about which flavor of ice cream is the best or discussing your favorite college basketball team. Most of us agree that if I like vanilla but you prefer chocolate, neither of us is necessarily wrong. As much as I think you all should be fans of the Northern Iowa Panthers, I do respect your right to cheer for the Cyclones or the Hawkeyes.
But is choosing a religion like choosing an ice cream flavor? Is Hinduism or Islam or Christianity or Wicca or some combination of beliefs really a matter of personal preference? What about morality? Some people are pro-life, others are pro-choice. Some believe in gay-rights, some feel homosexuality is a sin. Is it really like picking a team?
The politically correct answer is yes. In our culture, everybody is allowed and encouraged to believe whatever they want, just so long as they don’t try to impose their beliefs on anybody else. Today, so long as you respect and leave unchallenged other people’s choices in terms of religion and lifestyle, you are considered a good and humble and tolerant person. But as soon as you suggest that one religion might be better than another, or that some moral choices are right while other choices are wrong, then you are labeled prejudiced and arrogant and intolerant.
And yet, Jesus says that He came to testify to THE truth. He says that truth is real. And it is knowable. And it doesn’t depend on individual preferences or personal tastes.
We are all products of a culture that has relativized truth, and to some extent we probably all go along with the idea. And don’t get me wrong—tolerance of people who are different from us is not a bad thing. There’s no room for bigotry in Christianity. But choosing to love and care about and even accept people with different ideas from us is not the same as saying that all ideas are born equal. Just because we don’t want to be prejudiced doesn’t mean we have to give up on the idea of truth.
Because the fact is, relativism contradicts itself. If you say, “There is no absolute truth that everybody should believe” you are contradicting yourself. Because you are making a statement that you want everybody to believe, even as you are saying that there are no statements that everybody should believe. As John Piper says: “The hidden agenda of relativism is that it wants to relativize everybody else's claim to truth, but not its own.” (Jesus Came into the World to Bear Witness to the Truth, Dec. 25, 1988)
Author J.P. Moreland tells a story that illustrates the absurdity of relativism and also shows that, deep down, we all believe in objective truth. He writes:
One afternoon I was sharing the gospel in a student’s dorm room at the University of Vermont. The student began to espouse ethical relativism: ‘Whatever is true for you is true for you and whatever is true for me is true for me. . . . But no one should force his or her views on other people since everything is relative.’
I knew that if I allowed him to get away with ethical relativism, there could be for him no such thing as real, objective sin measured against the objective moral command of God, and thus no need of a Savior. I thanked the student for his time and began to leave his room. On the way out, I picked up his small stereo and started out the door with it.
‘Hey, what are you doing?’ he shouted. . . . ‘I am leaving your room with your stereo.’
‘You can’t do that,’ he gushed. But I said, ‘I happen to think it is permissible to steal stereos if it will help a person’s religious devotions, and I myself could use a stereo to listen to Christian music in my morning devotions. Now I would never try to force you to accept my moral beliefs in this regard because, as you said, everything is relative and we shouldn’t force our ideas on others. But surely you aren’t going to force on me your belief that it is wrong to steal your stereo, are you?’
I looked at him and continued: “You know what I think? I think that you espouse relativism in areas of your life where it’s convenient, say in sexual morality, or in areas about which you do not care, but when it comes to someone stealing your stereo or criticizing your own moral hobbyhorses, I suspect that you become a moral absolutist pretty quickly, don’t you?’ (from Apologetic Reasoning and the Christian Mind, quoted by Rodney Buchanan, “What is Truth?” at www.sermoncentral.com)
The story had a happy ending as Moreland says, “Believe it or not, the student honestly saw the inconsistency of his behavior and, a few weeks later, I was able to lead him to Jesus Christ.”
So the first thing we need to see is that truth is real. There really is truth that is the same for all time and for all people.
The King
Second, Jesus wants us to see that truth is a person. Truth is found in Him. More than just affirming that truth exists, Jesus wants Pilate and us to see that truth is centered in His person.
Jesus says, “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.”
Not only is Jesus saying that there is an objective truth, He’s also claiming to be the one who reveals it and determines it. Jesus is saying that it is possible to know the truth. It is found in Him. He’s the one who holds the answer to what life really means.
You see, one of the reasons I think so many people have a relative view of truth in our world is that they don’t think truth is knowable. They might acknowledge that somewhere, somehow there must be a right answer to how to have a relationship with God or deep principles of what’s right and wrong, but when it comes to figuring out what that is it seems just too hard.
There are so many claims to truth out there that people look at them all and decide it’s just not possible to pick just one. The reason so many people say “What’s right for you might not be right for me” is because it’s just easier than trying to figure out what’s right for everybody.
That’s Pilate. That’s what Pilate means when he asks his question: “What is truth?”
I mean, look at the position Pilate is in. He’s basically a middle manager. His bosses in Rome want him to keep the peace in Palestine. He’s supposed to bring in the taxes, keep civil order, be efficient. But he’s got all these Jewish Religious Authorities on his doorstep claiming that Jesus is a rebel, saying that Jesus is disrupting the peace, that Jesus is claiming to be king.
So Pilate questions Jesus. He doesn’t understand what Jesus is talking about, he doesn’t care what the Jewish Religious Authorities are upset about, and in the end he decides truth just isn’t knowable.
Pilate is non-committal. He’s not sure He believes truth exists. If it does exist, he doesn’t believe he can find it.
And maybe that’s you today as well. Maybe you are non-committal about Jesus not because you think he is untrue but just because you don't know. You live with a suspended judgment on the matter.
But what Pilate doesn’t get is that the truth is standing right in front of Him. He doesn’t see that if he would listen to Jesus he could have all the answers to every meaningful question he’s ever asked in his life.
Jesus’ claim is that truth is knowable. That truth is found in Him. God didn’t just send a rule book into the world, He sent a person. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). He is the embodiment of truth.
And so, there is no excuse for the kind of thinking that says: “Well, there are just so many competing truth claims in the world, it’s not possible to know what’s true and what’s false.” Instead, we have to get to know Jesus. We have to listen to what He says.
And if we do, I believe we will hear the ring of truth in His words. If we will give Him an honest and open examination
The Choice
The sad ending to our gospel story, of course, is that Pilate fails to recognize the importance of what Jesus is saying. And neither does the crowd outside the Palace.
Even as Pilate admits that he has no basis for a charge against Jesus, he fails to use the authority he has to set Jesus free. Instead, he vacillates and offers the crowd a compromise. He has another prisoner—a murderer named Barabbas—and they can choose which one they want back on the streets. Pilate undoubtedly expects them to choose Jesus, but they don’t.
It’s interesting how Pilate presents the choice in verse 39. He asks, “Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews?’” Even though he isn’t willing to recognize Jesus’ authority, he can’t help but to get a dig in at the Jewish Religious Authorities.
But, of course, they are no more willing to recognize Jesus’ authority than Pilate is. And so they call for Barabbas. They can’t handle the truth.
And that leads to the third point this morning: we all have to make this decision for ourselves. Jesus wants us to see that truth calls for a decision. You cannot be neutral about Jesus. You cannot be neutral on truth. You have to decide if you will accept the truth of Jesus or deny it.
Jesus says, “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
Probably the biggest reason people reject the idea of absolute truth is that we don’t want someone else telling us what to do. It’s not just that we’re not sure if truth exists, or that we don’t believe it is knowable, as much as we don’t believe anybody else has the authority to tell us how to live our lives.
Have you ever played blocks with a three-year-old? They put a block in place, then you do. But sometimes, when you are playing with a three-year-old, they don’t like the way you place your blocks. They say: “No, no. You put your block there” or “do it like this.”
Part of playing with young children is that they get to be “in charge.” You let them determine the rules for how you play, and as an adult you do your best to go along. If you try to show them a better way to stack the blocks, they might get mad at you and push your blocks down.
And, of course, when you’re playing blocks with a 3-year-old, that’s fine. You’re trying to build some agency and independent thought into them. But part of our job as adults is also to teach children that’s not how things always work. They’re not always going to be in charge. They don’t always get to make the rules. There are others who have authority over them—like Mom and Dad, but also someday their teachers, their employer, and ultimately God.
But all too often, I think we act like 3-year-olds when it comes to how we live our lives. We don’t believe anybody has the right to tell us what to do. We think we are the final judges of what’s real and what’s not. We think we are the authorities.
That’s not how life really works though. There is a God. He makes the rules. He says how we get to heaven or not. He says what is right and wrong. And He’s revealed this truth in His son Jesus Christ.
And we have to make a decision. We have to pick a side.
Either we are going to bow our knee to Him or, like the crowd we are going to reject Him. But we have to choose.
And I want you to see just how much is at stake. Don’t say there is no such thing as truth. Don’t say that it’s impossible to know. There’s too much at stake.
Maybe that’s the best way to end this morning—by thinking about what’s at stake.
It’s easy to debate stuff like the reality of truth in a Philosophy 101 class or over drinks at a dinner party. It’s easy to say “What’s true for you isn’t necessarily true for me” when we’re talking about things in the abstract.
But when there is something at stake, we have strong feelings. When somebody is walking out the door with something that belongs to you, we care quite a bit about right and wrong. If somebody punches you in the nose, you’re going to have a hard time being agnostic about truth.
Well, what’s at stake here is worth so much more than that. This is a question of eternal life and death. Your life is on the line. Jesus claims to be the truth, and he says there are sides. Don’t be on the wrong side.
I don’t mean to brag, and I’m not an architect or anything, but I can build a better block building than most three-year-olds. I’m older, I know better…
The question before us today then, is whether we are going to keep acting like toddlers by insisting that we have to be allowed to live by our own rules, or whether we will listen to the one who is the truth, the one who made us, the one who gave His life for us.
