An Obscure, Perplexing Biblical Passage

Recently I was scouring the Gospels for evidence as to whether—according to the text—Jesus was truly willing to be crucified, as God (the Father) demanded that Jesus do. I came across this bizarre passage in John 19:

10Pilate therefore said to him [i.e., Jesus], "Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?" 11Jesus answered him, "You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin."

Let S<–; be Jesus' statement before the semicolon ("You would have no . . . "). Let S;–> be Jesus' statement after the semicolon ("therefore the one who . . . ").

It's quite natural to interpret S<–; as asserting that Pilate only has power to release or crucify Jesus insofar as God allows, or wants, Pilate to do so. But doesn't this mean that, in a certain sense, God handed Jesus over to Pilate? You'd think so. Even if we say God didn't really hand Jesus over to Pilate, because God wasn't the one on earth who sent Jesus to Pilate (perhaps literally using hands or physical force to get Jesus there), that doesn't blunt the force of the worry. For, by Jesus' own logic, it is not Jesus' being literally handed over to Pilate that is the root of the issue, but rather the fact that someone gave Pilate power over Jesus. It is only because handing Jesus over to Pilate leads to Pilate's gaining power over Jesus that the handing over is sinful. This puts the Christian in a sticky situation, because, as Jesus expresses in S<–; , God is the ultimate source of Pilate's power over Jesus. And so, again by Jesus' own logic, God is guilty of an even greater sin than any human who handed Jesus over to Pilate. For, just like Pilate, the human who handed Jesus over would have no power over Jesus unless God had given it to him.

For some reason, all the commentaries I've read on John 19.11 implicitly dismiss the possibility that S;–> is saying God himself is guilty of a greater sin than Pilate. This dismissal would make sense if we did not take S<–; as affirming that God actually gave Pilate power over Jesus, but only that Pilate couldn't have any power over Jesus that didn't come from God. Maybe Jesus' point is precisely that Pilate has no legitimate power over Jesus, because God gave Pilate no such power. But that's not what the commentators say, and I understand why they're hesitant to say that. God is supposed to have demanded, in accordance with his own sense of justice, that Jesus be crucified. So it makes little sense that God would have refused to actualize or legitimate Pilate's power to crucify Jesus.

Another potential way out is to interpret "from above" as from a human authority higher than Pilate, not from God. Again, I know of no commentator who interprets the phrase that way. It does seem clear, though, that this is part of what Jesus meant by the phrase, at least if we are to accept the commentaries' hypothesis that, in S;–> , Jesus is accusing a higher human authority of this "greater sin." After all, if S<–; were solely about power given to Pilate from above all earthly beings—from heaven, as we might say—it would make no sense for Jesus to infer (as indicated by his use of the term "therefore") from S<–; that some human authority above Pilate is guilty of a greater sin. In other words, if S<–; only said Pilate could have no power over Jesus except from God, it wouldn't follow from S<–; that the human who handed Jesus over to Pilate was guilty of a greater sin.

Here is a formalization of the argument.


(1) Jesus believed that, the higher the authority responsible for his being crucified by Pilate, the more blameworthy that authority is for Jesus' being crucified.

(premise)


(2) So, if Jesus has never had false beliefs, the higher the authority responsible for his being crucified by Pilate, the more blameworthy that authority is for Jesus' being crucified.

(from (1))

(3) Jesus has never had false beliefs.

(premise)

(4) So, the higher the authority responsible for Jesus' being crucified by Pilate, the more blameworthy that authority is for Jesus' being crucified.

(from (2) + (3))

(5) God is the highest authority responsible for Jesus' being crucified by Pilate.

(premise)

(6) So, God is the authority who is most blameworthy for Jesus' being crucified.

(from (4) + (5))

(7) Pilate is very blameworthy for Jesus' being crucified.

(premise)

(8) Some higher human authorities than Pilate1 are responsible for Jesus' being crucified by Pilate.

(premise)

(9) So, these authorities are even more blameworthy than Pilate—that is, more than very blameworthy—for Jesus' being crucified.

(from (4) + (7) + (8))

(10) Therefore, God is extremely blameworthy—indeed, more so than any of the aforementioned human authorities—for Jesus' being crucified.

(from (6) + (9))

I believe a Christian would be hard-pressed to reject any of these premises. But it's worth noting that even Christians sometimes reject (3) on independent grounds, which usually have to do with Jesus' incorrect prediction that the eschaton would occur within his disciples' lifetimes. C. S. Lewis is a notable exponent of this view:

I take it that, to this day, this has remained a minority view among Christians. Maybe that needs to change.


Endnotes

1. Particularly Caiaphas, according to the commentaries.

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