Suffered Under Pontius Pilate

by on April 18, 2025

The first part of the fourth article of our “undoubted Christian faith” (Heidelberg Catechism 22), which we confess in the Apostles’ Creed, says Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate” (passus sub Pontio Pilato). This is a remarkable thing to say. After all, we also understand the gospel writers to teach us that the Jesus who suffered under Pilate was and remains God the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, incarnate. As orthodox Christians we affirm that God is impassible, and yet it is also true that Jesus, God the Son incarnate, did indeed suffer under Pilate. Our Lord’s interaction with Pontius Pilate is fascinating and bears consideration on this Good Friday. But before we do that, we should meet the man whose name we recite so often in church.

Pilate the Tyrant

We do not know a great deal about Pontius Pilate except that he was Praefectus Judae from AD 26 to c. AD 36. He became prefect (governor) “through the influence of his mentor Sejanus, commander of the praetorian guard, who was known to be antisemitic.”1 The Jewish thinker Philo Judaeus (or Alexandrinus) described Pilate as “one of the emperor’s lieutenants.”2 The Jewish historian Josephus and Philo both testify that Pilate was “greedy, inflexible, cruel, and resorted to robbery and oppression.”3 He imposed upon the Jews the cult of the emperor (by posting gold shields with the emperor’s image on them) and seized funds from the temple treasury to fund public works (an aqueduct).4 Regarding the former incident, Josephus records:

Pilate was the first who brought those images to Jerusalem, and set them up there; which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the nighttime; (57) but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Cesarea, and interceded with Pilate many days, that he would remove the images; and when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons privately, while he came and sat upon his judgment seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them: (58) and when the Jews petitioned him again, he gave a signal to the soldiers to encompass them round, and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbing him, and go their ways home.5

Michael Brandon Massey is right to say that “Philo and Josephus present Pilate as a cruel tyrant.”6

Our other major source regarding Pilate is the gospels themselves. For example, Luke records perhaps, apart from the trial and murder of Jesus, his most notorious crime, that is, mixing the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices (Luke 13:1). Following I. Howard Marshall, Massey explains, “Pilate may have killed Galileans as they were offering sacrifices at Jerusalem, likely at Passover—the only time when people slaughtered their own sacrifices.”7

Jesus Before Pilate

The Jewish authorities demanded of our Lord, “‘If you are the Christ, tell us.’ But he said to them, ‘If I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you, you will not answer. But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God'” (Luke 22:67–69). At this the Sanhedrin demanded, “Are you the Son of God, then?” to which he replied, “You say that I am” (Luke 22:70). Satisfied that they had him right where they wanted him, they took him to Pilate for trial (Luke 23:1). They proceeded to lie to Pilate, accusing him of teaching that the Jews should not pay taxes (Luke 23:2), when, in fact, he had taught the exact opposite (Luke 20:25). They accused him of calling himself a king (Luke 23:2).

John tells us that Pilate “entered again into the Praetorium” (John 18:33).8 There he interviewed Jesus. Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” (Luke 23:3; John 18:33) and Jesus answered him as he answered the Sanhedrin, “You have said so” (Luke 23:3). He also said to Pilate, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” (John 18:34). Pilate retorted, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” (John 18:35). It was to this line of enquiry that Jesus declared, “My kingdom is not of this world. Were my kingdom of this world, my servants would be fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews but now my kingdom is not of the world” (John 18:36).9

Pilate pressed him: “So you are a king?” But Jesus explained: “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). Pilate, the cynical political hack that he was replied, “What is truth?” (John 18:37).

Pilate responded by declaring to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no guilt in this man” (Luke 23:4). This was not the outcome they wanted, so the Jewish authorities pressed Pilate. Pilate responded like a good bureaucrat. He wanted to know to whose jurisdiction he belonged (Luke 23:7). When he discovered that Jesus was a Galilean he shuttled him off to Herod, who happened to be in Jerusalem, but he was only interested in seeing a magic show. When Jesus refused to cooperate, Herod mocked him, clothed him in royal purple, and sent him back to Pilate for disposition (Luke 23:8–11).

Pilate rehearsed the state of the case and the fact of Jesus’ innocence, and he determined to “punish and release him” (Luke 23:16). The Jewish authorities were distraught. This is not at all what they wanted. They wanted Jesus dead. So, Luke records that they cried out for Bar-Abbas (Luke 23:18). Pilate again re-stated Jesus’ innocence. For a third time Pilate declared Jesus’ innocence (Luke 23:22), but the Jews—now it is no longer entirely clear in Luke whether it is the authorities above or the mob below—were crying for Jesus to be crucified. It was their “voices who prevailed” (Luke 23:23). Only then did Pilate, that cruel tyrant who had already determined to punish a man whom he declared three times to be innocent, decide to grant their demand (Luke 23:24). He released the actual insurrectionist Bar-Abbas and “delivered Jesus over to their will.”

What It Means

Two things emerge from the secular and sacred records. First, the Jewish authorities were determined to see Jesus dead, and though Pilate is certainly culpable for his wickedness, he was merely a vehicle to accomplish this goal.

Second, Pilate was a negligible figure. Had Jesus never appeared before him, he would be unknown. Ironically, because God the Son submitted to this humiliation, Pilate’s name will be known by Christians until Jesus returns and Pilate stands before the righteous King of Kings to give account.

On this Good Friday we should remember not only that Jesus suffered on the cross but also that he, as we confess, “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” The cross was the culmination of that suffering, but it began in the Praetorium. Why did Jesus subject himself to this Good Friday suffering? Our catechism gives us a wonderful and reassuring answer:

Why did He suffer “under Pontius Pilate” as judge?

That He, being innocent, might be condemned by the temporal judge, and thereby deliver us from the severe judgment of God, to which we were exposed.

It was necessary for our Savior to show that he was entirely innocent. He was so obviously innocent that Pilate declared it three times. There was no question in anyone’s mind that Friday what was transpiring. It was a terrible transactional bit of business. Pilate gave him over to keep the peace. The crowds cried for a criminal instead of the Christ and the Jewish authorities got rid of a threat.

What we sinners, both Jewish and Gentile, got, however, was a Savior and a King who was lifted up (John 12:32) and who would draw all men to himself. Christian, his suffering under Pilate delivered you from the condemnation that you deserved—that we all deserve. By remembering his suffering under Pilate, we are reminded that someone, Jesus of Nazareth, really took our place; and that is what makes Good Friday good.

Notes

  1. Harold W. Hoehner, “The World of the New Testament,” in The Eerdmans Companion to the Bible, ed. Gordon D. Fee and Robert L. Hubbard Jr. (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011), 503.
  2. Charles Duke Yonge ed., The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 784.
  3. Hoehner, “The World of the New Testament,” 503.
  4. Hoehner, “The World of the New Testament,” 503. See (60) Josephus: “But Pilate undertook to bring a current of water to Jerusalem, and did it with the sacred money, and derived the origin of the stream from the distance of two hundred furlongs.” Flavius Josephus, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, trans. William Whiston (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 480. See also Yonge, ed., The Works of Philo, 784.
  5. Flavius Josephus, The Works of Josephus, 480.
  6. Michael Brandon Massey, “Pontius Pilate,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
  7. Massey, “Pontius Pilate.”
  8. My translation.
  9. My translation.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

RESOURCES

Heidelberg Reformation Association
1637 E. Valley Parkway #391
Escondido CA 92027
USA
The HRA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization

    Post authored by:

  • R. Scott Clark
    Author Image

    R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

    More by R. Scott Clark ›

Subscribe to the Heidelblog today!