“When the chief priests and their officers saw him, they shouted out, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said, “You take him and crucify him! Certainly I find no reason for an accusation against him!” The Jewish leaders replied, “We have a law, and according to our law he ought to die, because he claimed to be the Son of God!””, John 19:6-7 NET
• Just because you are innocent doesn’t mean you will not be punished! Jesus experienced this to the most extreme degree possible. He was the most innocent person to ever live and yet He was punished severely (at a time when they just happened to master the art of punishment!)
• I wonder if it was hard for Jesus to not take it personally when people were demanding He be killed in the cruelest way available at the time. I know He knew it was God’s will, and that Satan was the one really working through these men, but still, it had to be hard (even for Jesus) not to take it personally (because it obviously was personal).
• Many scholars say that Jewish leaders were referring to the following part of the law:
“Whoever blasphemes the name of Yahweh is to be put to death; the whole community must stone him. If he blasphemes the Name, he is to be put to death, whether the foreign resident or the native.”, Leviticus 24:16 HCSB
• Interestingly, even if they thought they properly applying the law to Jesus (since they did not believe He was the Son of God), they still disobeyed God by demanding that He be crucified! The law specifically says to stone someone not to crucify them. Yes they could not kill someone under Roman law but still, does that mean that they could replace stoning with crucifixion to obey the law! They following the “must be put the death” part but not the stoning part.