Jesus' trial now moved from its Jewish phase into its Roman phase.497It did not take long for Pilate to determine that Jesus was innocent of any crime worthy of death. Notwithstanding the record stresses how difficult it was for him to convict an innocent man. Pilate normally resided in the provincial capital at Caesarea. He was in Jerusalem because of the Passover season that drew huge crowds and possible civil unrest to the city.
23:1-2 The whole body in view is the Sanhedrin. Luke alone recorded their specific charges against Jesus. They accused Him of leading the Jews away from their duty to Rome. This was untrue. Second, they charged Him with teaching the Jews not to pay taxes. This was untrue (cf. 20:25). Third, they accused Him of claiming to be a king, namely the Jewish Messiah. This was true (cf. 22:69-70). This was the one issue about which Pilate showed concern.
23:3-4 It may seem strange that having secured a confession from Jesus that He was the King of the Jews Pilate would declare Him innocent. The answer is that Luke did not record the conversation that took place between verses 3 and 4 (cf. John 18:35-38). In this conversation Pilate learned that Jesus did not claim to be a king in the ordinary sense. He concluded that Jesus posed no treat to the political stability of Roman interests in Palestine. Only Luke recorded Pilate's official verdict that he gave to the Sanhedrin (cf. John 18:38; 19:4, 6).
In Acts as well as in Luke our writer recorded the innocent verdicts of government officials when passing judgment on Christian leaders (e.g., Acts 18:12-17; 19:35-41; 25:23-27; 26:30-32). He obviously wanted to assure his readers that Christianity was not seeking to overthrow the Roman Empire and was not hostile to Roman civil authority.
23:5-7 The continuing protestations of the Sanhedrin members led Pilate to send Jesus to Herod for examination. He probably did this to placate the Jewish leaders and to satisfy himself that he had not overlooked something in Jesus' case that might merit punishment. Perhaps Herod Antipas had evidence of Jesus' alleged insurrectionist activity in Galilee. Herod had a longer and more thorough acquaintance with Jewish affairs than Pilate did, and he was Semitic. Herod was evidently in Jerusalem for the same reasons Pilate was. Pilate's intention was evidently not to pass Jesus off to Herod and so relieve himself of his own responsibility but to secure Herod's counsel in Jesus' case (cf. vv. 7, 11).
