“Barabbas” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnDKD1NMH4
We are taking a break from our “What Is A Christian?” Series this evening, and allowing the Season to guide us into a Biblical study of the Trial of Jesus Christ. This coming Friday, March 29th, Christians all over the world we be commemorating “Good Friday” as it has come to be known, the day on which Christ was crucified.
Before His crucifixion, as I am sure you are all well aware, Jesus was on trial before the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate. I want to revisit a Study of that Trial that I presented five years ago, and refresh your memories about some truly amazing things that I think you may have never have heard, or have forgotten.
When I wrote this five years ago, I had recently re-watched “The Passion of the Christ,” which I had not seen in years. And I watched that scene with Jesus and Barabbas standing before Pilate. Normally, when we get to that part of the account of Jesus' trial before Pilate, we kick Barabbas to the curb, and forget about him as if he were nothing more than a meaningless and unnecessary footnote.
After all, even if Barabbas had never been born, or did not appear on that Judgment Platform at the same time that Jesus was being tried, the crowd would have continued to call for Jesus' crucifixion. But Barabbas was there! As I watched that scene in the The Passion of the Christ, I realized that Barabbas was not a footnote at all in the flow of events.
I realized, as I never saw it before, that Barabbas was an essential, even a critically essential part of this story, because he was, at that moment in history, a significant symbol in God's Plan of Salvation. If you think this is an exaggeration, or an embellishment on my part, that's fine. All I ask is that you allow me to present my case to you, and then decide.
Let's notice the flow of events from Matthew's Gospel: We'll break into that flow of events beginning in Matthew 27:15: “Now at that feast the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner, whom they would. 16 And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.
17 Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?” The New King James Version translates “notable prisoner” as “notorious prisoner.” The name “Barabbas” was a household name. He was the Al Capone of his day.
We know whom the mob chose. We'll look at that in greater detail later. For right now, instead of summarily discarding Barabbas as a footnote, let's stop, instead, and zoom in on his presence, at that precise moment in history, on that Judgment Platform with Jesus.
Was Barabbas guilty, and worthy of death, in this case by crucifixion? Notice the Scriptural notations regarding Barabbas: John 18:40 tells us, “Now Barabbas was a robber.” Notice: It did not merely say that he was charged with robbery. No... it said he "was a robber."
Also consider: Clarke's Commentary says, “Barabbas was a robber - The later Syriac has in the margin that he was a chief robber, a captain of bandits, and it is probable that this was the case. He was not only a person who lived by plunder, but shed the blood of many of those whom he and his gang robbed, and rose up against the Roman government...”
So we see that a robber was a merciless and brutal criminal who did not just rob his victims, he brutalized them as well. A thief was just a “stealer,” he took items, and stole merchandise from the market, while a robber was a sadistic fiend who take pleasure in torturing and/or killing his victims.
In His Parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus spoke of a man who, in his travels, “fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.” The original Greek says, however, that he “fell among robbers”! The Barabbas Gang often left their victims all the way dead, not just half dead.
When the mob came to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the King James Version's translation has Jesus asking in Matthew's, Mark's and Luke's Gospels: “Are ye come out as against a thief?” In each case, however, the original Greek says, “...against a robber?” Robbers were a scourge on society.
I have read that there were towns and communities that were abandoned in those days because the roads leading from their towns to other towns were swarming with robbers. The Romans' response to these brutal and merciless criminals was to sentence them to an equally brutal and merciless punishment: scourging, and crucifixion. There was no more heinous a punishment that has, to this day in my opinion, ever been devised than crucifixion.
More lights began to turn on for me as I gave a second look at Jesus being crucified between two “thieves” (Matthew 27:38). I checked the original Greek for that as well to see what it said. I wondered if there was any connection between those two thieves and Barabbas. To my amazement, there, too, the original Greek says that Jesus was crucified between two “robbers,” and not two thieves.
The King James translators considered the two words synonymous. A thief (Greek, “kleptes”) and a robber (Greek, “lestes”) both steal what does not belong to them. In the early 1600's there was, perhaps no significant difference between the two categories of criminal behavior. Jesus was crucified between two “robbers,” and not two thieves. I was on to something, but what was I seeing? Was I letting my imagination run away with me or could I find actual proof of this connection?
I remembered reading in Scripture that Barabbas had committed murder in an insurrection. I found it in Mark 15:7, but I was stunned when I read the account in the NKJV: "And there was one named Barabbas, who was chained with his fellow rebels; they had committed murder in the rebellion." “Fellow rebels”!
The two robbers crucified on either side of Jesus were part of the Barabbas Gang! That means that all along there were scheduled to be crucified three prisoners that morning: The Romans had caught, tried and convicted the Barabbas Gang: Barabbas and his two accomplices!
All three of them had to have been right there in a staging area of a sort, awaiting crucifixion. I say that for three reasons: 1.) Barabbas, himself, was right there, for Pilate to have been able to offer him as a choice, and then release him when he was chosen. 2.) The thief who was railing on Jesus said, “If thou be Christ, save thyself and us” (Luke 23:39). He had to have heard Jesus' accusers and Pilate all calling Jesus “Christ” during the trial (Luke 23:2, ).
How else would he have recognized Jesus on the cross, after the savage scourging He suffered? 3.) Let's take a fresh look at the words of the “good thief.” He says to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom” (Luke 23:42). “Lord”? “Kingdom”?
Are these terms something that one criminal nailed to a cross would have said to another crucified man? No... not unless he heard the charges, and Jesus' response to Pilate that, “My kingdom is not of this world:” (John 18:36). And he would have had to have been right there in order to hear that exchange.
Yet more lights came on, and brought into sharper focus for me more familiar details of that scene: Think, now, of the words of the “good thief,” as he rebuked his fellow robber for railing against Jesus. He had already been scourged, and here he says from the cross he was nailed to, “Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds:” (Luke 23:40-41).
Would a petty, pickpocket-level thief ever say he deserved to be crucified for his deeds? Think of how despicable his crimes had to be, even in his own mind, to declare being crucified a “due reward”! The smoke continued to clear and suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, I now was able to see Pilate's behavior in a new light, and from a radically new perspective:
When Pilate gave the mob a choice between freeing Jesus or Barabbas, he was actually “sweetening the pot” in favor of freeing Jesus by offering them their King, or Public Enemy #1! Barabbas, remember, was a “notorious prisoner.” Surely people in that mob knew of him and some of his victims!
So Pilate's offer would be, today, like the Governor of Massachusetts asking a crowd outside a Boston Court: “Whom shall I release to you? Billy Graham? Or The Boston Strangler?” I believe Pilate was sure they would choose Jesus! The reason I believe that is that Barabbas had committed murder in an insurrection. What is an insurrection? It's an uprising against the government; it's an attempt to overthrow the government.
Who gets killed by the rebels in an insurrection? In this case it would have been Roman soldiers and/or Roman Officials! And Pilate offered as one of the two choices, to release the Leader, no less, not only of that insurrection, but of a malicious gang of robbers. He must have fully believed that the mob would never choose Barabbas!
I know that this is perhaps an unusual or unexpected position I am taking on Pilate's motives and behavior, but I am not the first person to recognize Pilate's genuine efforts to free Jesus. Peter, himself, also reached that same conclusion, and said so in so many words!
When he and John had just healed that lame man outside the Temple, we read Peter's words to the crowd that gathered in Acts 3:12-13: “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?
The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go...” As far as Peter was concerned, Pilate was “determined” to let Jesus go free!
The mob chose Barabbas to be released instead of Jesus!! Pilate's motives are clearly revealed, here, when we read of his incredulous reaction: Beginning in Matthew 27:22: “What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.
23 And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. 24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.”
Matthew Henry also recognized Pilate's motive to release Jesus: “Whether of the twain (saith Pilate) will ye that I release unto you? He hoped that he had gained his point, to have Jesus released. But, to his great surprise, they said Barabbas...
Pilate, being amazed at their choice of Barabbas, was willing to hope that it was rather from a fondness for him than from an enmity to Jesus; and therefore he puts it to them, “What shall I do then with Jesus? Shall I release him likewise, for the greater honour of your feast, or will you leave it to me?” No, they all said, Let him be crucified.”
As I re-watched, "The Passion of the Christ," I paid particular attention to the Barabbas character on the screen. It was interesting how he was depicted in that movie. He was a wild-eyed, unshaven, unkempt, snarling Neanderthal of a criminal. But I looked at him in a new way, and from a new perspective, and one that I never have before considered.
I will go into further detail about what prompted that new perspective a little later. But as I watched the proceedings, it finally penetrated my thick skull that here was a guilty individual, both fully expecting and deserving to die for his crimes. Instead, the unthinkable happened: Pilate released him!
The Greek word for “released” is apoluo -- pronounced: ap-ol-OO'-o. It means "to free fully or pardon:" Throughout the New Testament, apoluo is also translated: (let) depart, dismiss, forgive, let go, loose, send away, release, and set at liberty.
Jesus used this Greek word, "apoluo," in one of His Parables. In Matthew 18, Jesus is presenting the Parable of the servant who owed his master ten thousand talents, an unimaginable sum – what we would call, today, a gazillion dollars. The servant begged his lord to not put him and his family in prison, but rather to give him the time to pay it back some how, as if that were within the realm of possibility. It was not.
Then in verse 27, Jesus continued the flow of the Parable: Matthew 18:27 "Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed (apoluo) him, and forgave him the debt." Pilate, using the same Greek word, loosed... released... dismissed... freed fully Barabbas. Why? Barabbas was chosen by the mob intent on seeing Jesus crucified. Ultimately, they got their way.
Jesus took the punishment that Barabbas deserved. Jesus suffered the death penalty in the place of a man who deserved to die... a man who was, instead, released without so much as a scratch... Barabbas did not deserve to be released. Barabbas did not ask the judge, Pilate, in this case, to release him. It was the Judge's idea to to set in motion set in motion the events that released Barabbas without being punished. Barabbas was given an absolutely unmerited pardon. Wait a minute... “Unmerited pardon...” Where have I heard that term before?
That is what Barabbas received but isn't that also how we define Grace? And isn't that exactly what God gives us? Don't we receive unmerited pardon because, as with Barabbas, Jesus took upon Himself the death penalty that each of us deserve? Jesus died... for our our sins... for our rebellion... and for our iniquity.
As Isaiah phrased it in Isaiah 53:5: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."
Now I want to share with you why I paid attention to Barabbas as I never had formerly. As I said earlier, even if Barabbas had not been standing before Pilate's Judgment Seat that morning, we would still have had a picture of Jesus Christ the innocent and spotless Lamb of God, laying down His Life, and taking away the sin of the world. Barabbas' presence there, however, paints for us such a more complete picture of Jesus' substitutionary Role in God's Plan of Salvation.
We have, in that one scene, the Judge, in the person of Pilate, releasing the guilty prisoner Barabbas, and without punishment for his lawlessness and rebellion. And then, in that same scene, the same Judge who had repeatedly declared Jesus innocent, ordered Him to be executed by crucifixion.
The reason I stopped to pay close attention to that scene in the movie, The Passion of The Christ, is because I had looked up the meaning of the name: “Barabbas.” Does anyone know what his name means? In Hebrew, the prefix "Bar" means "son of." Notice in this verse how that prefix is used: Mark 10:46: "And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging."
So “Bar” means “son of.” Abba, or Abbas in the Greek, Barabbas means, “son of the father.” The innocent Jesus literally took Barabbas' place on the cross, receiving undeserved punishment for our sins, while Barabbas, symbolically taking our place, is chosen to be released without any punishment!
Now think about this. This is important: No matter what his name was, it could have been Daniel or David, or anything else, but think of how much more clear and powerful it is for us that a man named, Barabbas, which means "son of the father," is in understanding what God has done for us. Jesus, the Son of God, was nailed to the cross of the man whose name means, “son of the father”!
Now, some of you may be saying, "Jesus is the Son of the Father. How can you be saying, 'Barabbas is the son of the father'?" That is correct. Jesus IS the Son of the Father. And He is "the only begotten Son of God" as we read in John 3:16. I am only pointing out that the name Barabbas MEANS, "son of the father," which provides a deeper significance to his being chosen to be released unpunished, even though he was guilty. Jesus, again, is the "only begotten Son of the Father,"
Are we ever called “sons of the father” in those exact words? No... But we read in Isaiah 46:10: “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:”
God knows what He has planned from ancient times: When were our names written in the Book of Life? Revelation tells us that they were written there “from the Foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Barabbas, as the son of the father, being chosen without merit, to be released without punishment, stood there symbolizing us, even in God's eyes: We read that God “calleth those things which be not as though they were.” The guilty “son of the father,” deserving of punishment, was chosen without merit, to be released without punishment!
Notice also how we are spoken of in Hebrews 2:10: “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Are we not the sons who are spoken of in that preceding verse, released, receiving unmerited pardon, and ultimately brought to glory by and through our punishment being paid in full by Jesus on the cross?
Consider also, beginning in Galatians 4:4: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Abba. There it is again. Abba. Father. Barabbas means, "son of the father." That is us!
Also consider Romans 8:15: "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." There is Abba, again! Now consider John 1:12: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”
Finally, there is 1 John 3:1: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God..." Barabbas, as perhaps all of us have incorrectly regarded him for so long, was not a mere disposable footnote of history: That scene on that Judgment Platform, that we are so familiar with, was rich in spiritual symbolism... symbolism that I believe has been completely missed:
There Barabbas, guilty and worthy of punishment for his lawlessness, but chosen to be released without a scratch, and Jesus, repeatedly declared innocent, but condemned to death, taking the punishment that Barabbas deserved. And we cry out that that was such on outrageous miscarriage of justice! And it was!
But that was and is a picture of me. I am Barabbas. And so are each of you. I am the guilty son of the Father, undeservedly having been chosen to be released without the punishment I deserved for my lawlessness and rebellion! And so are each of you. As with the historic Barabbas, Jesus took my place. Jesus took my punishment. Jesus died the death I deserved. And He died the death that each of you deserved.
As so often happens when I prepare these Discussions, when I think it is complete, and when I think all the ducks are in a row, I save the document file, turn off my laptop and go on to other things thinking I am done... but I begin to see other doors opening, and other lights coming on in areas that were formerly closed and dark to me.
I began to see that our Salvation, so vividly pictured in this Spiritual Symbolism was not complete. The two players in this drama may have each left that Judgment Platform, one to his freedom and the Other to His death, but this symbolic picture was not complete for us as sons of the Father. And, so as not to exclude any of our sisters in Christ, we read in 2 Corinthians 6:18: “And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”
We also read in Galatians 3:26: “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus,” and everything I have shared here, applies to all of us. Jesus' going to the cross did not merely pay for our sins... He did far more than merely take away our sins... we read the astounding verse in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For he {God} hath made him {Christ} to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
I also began to see that the when, the Who and the why of believers being chosen was radically different from Barabbas' being chosen. As Jesus' trial was in progress, Barabbas was chosen without merit ,to be released without punishment, by a blood-thirst mob determined to have Jesus crucified. They chose to release Barabbas not because they were “for Barabbas.” No! They were against Jesus!
We were also chosen: But when were we chosen, and by Whom, and why were we chosen? When we were chosen? Ephesians 1:4a tells us: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world...” Just meditate on that incredible verse for a bit to let it fully sink in. We were chosen in Christ, “before the foundation of the world”! That is the same time frame Revelation says our names were written in the Book of Life: “from the Foundation of the world”!
Who chose us? In John 15, in verses 16a and 19b, Jesus said to His followers at the Last Supper, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you...” 19 “I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” We also read in 1 Peter 2:9a: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people...”
Let's pause for just a second to realize Who is saying that He chose us. If you compare Genesis 1 with John 1, we can see that the One Who became Jesus Christ, that Member of the Godhead Who kneeled down to breathe into that formation of clay that became Adam, the breath of Life, and the One Who said if you sin you shall surely die, that same One was now saying, I have chosen you to be released without merit from the penalty of sin, to go unpunished. I have come in the flesh to die in your place. Jesus is the One Who chose us!
Lest we get a big head about being chosen, let us remember what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:27 about our being chosen: “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world... and God hath chosen the weak things...”
Finally, why were we chosen? To find that out, let's revisit the verses that identified Who chose us and read to to see why we were chosen: John 15:16b: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain...”
Next, in Ephesians 1:4b we read: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:”
Of this, Matthew Henry writes, “Election, or choice, respects that lump or mass of mankind out of which some are chosen, from which they are separated and distinguished. Predestination has respect to the blessings they are designed for; particularly the adoption of children, it being the purpose of God that in due time we should become his adopted children, and so have a right to all the privileges and to the inheritance of children.
We have here the date of this act of love: it was before the foundation of the world; not only before God's people had a being, but before the world had a beginning; for they were chosen in the counsel of God from all eternity. It magnifies these blessings to a high degree that they are the products of eternal counsel.
The alms which you give to beggars at your doors proceed from a sudden resolve; but the provision which a parent makes for his children is the result of many thoughts, and is put into his last will and testament with a great deal of solemnity.
And, as this magnifies divine love, so it secures the blessings to God's elect; for the purpose of God according to election shall stand.
He acts in pursuance of his eternal purpose in bestowing spiritual blessings upon his people. He hath blessed us - according as he hath chosen us in him, in Christ the great head of the election, who is emphatically called God's elect, his chosen; and in the chosen Redeemer an eye of favour was cast upon them. Observe here one great end and design of this choice: chosen - that we should be holy; not because he foresaw they would be holy, but because he determined to make them so.
All who are chosen to happiness as the end are chosen to holiness as the means. Their sanctification, as well as their salvation, is the result of the counsels of divine love. - And without blame before him - that their holiness might not be merely external and in outward appearance, so as to prevent blame from men, but internal and real, and what God himself, who looketh at the heart, will account such, such holiness as proceeds from love to God and to our fellow-creatures, this charity being the principle of all true holiness.
The original word signifies such an innocence as no man can carp at; and therefore some understand it of that perfect holiness which the saints shall attain in the life to come, which will be eminently before God, they being in his immediate presence for ever. Here is also the rule and the fontal cause of God's election: it is according to the good pleasure of his will.”
Let's also read Paul's complete thought in 1 Corinthians 1:27, to see another reason why he chose us: “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;”
And finally in 1 Peter 2:9b: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:”
Barabbas is such an amazing historical and symbolic figure. He, whose name means Son of the Father, was and is the very picture of you and me, standing, guilty on all charges, on the Judgment Platform, and then chosen without merit, to be released without punishment. And there we also see Jesus, the Son of God, innocent of all charges, chosen to, and willingly submitting to suffering the death penalty in our place, being nailed to the cross on which we deserved to die.
Let me repeat: This week as you consider God's Plan of Salvation, realize who you are: Barabbas, the guilty Son of the Father, chosen without merit, to leave that Judgment Platform unpunished, while Jesus, the innocent Son of God, sheds His blood for you and me, and died. Jesus tells us, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). But Jesus did not lay down His Life for His friends: Jesus died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6), for sinners (Romans 5:8) and for His enemies (Romans 5:10). That makes His love for us so much more a greater love yet!
Of this Matthew Henry writes, “Now herein God commended his love... He evinces his love in the most winning, affecting, endearing way imaginable... While we were yet sinners, implying that we were not to be always sinners, there should be a change wrought; for he died to save us, not in our sins, but from our sins; but we were yet sinners when he died for us. Nay, which is more, we were enemies (Romans 5:10)...
And that for such as these Christ should die is such a mystery, such a paradox, such an unprecedented instance of love, that it may well be our business to eternity to adore and wonder at it. This is a commendation of love indeed. Justly might he who had thus loved us make it one of the laws of his kingdom that we should love our enemies.”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Barabbas.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on March 27th, 2024
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