What do you think Pilate thought of Christ? Did he have respect for him?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘Four Journeys to Jerusalem’ (2009).

Well, we know, because the text says so three times over in John, that Pilate found the charge against Christ to be unfounded and certainly unproven. That is, the charge that Christ was a political messiah was not true. This was a common thing in Israel. You had zealots from time to time. The people that started the war in AD 66 that led to the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in AD 70 by the Romans were hot-headed extremists who eventually were able to force the hand of the high priests, because they had so much influence with the people. And from the point of view of the high priests and others, they were doing very well under the Romans. They were very wealthy men! They got enormous dues out of the temple. They were hobnobbing with Roman Emperors and other people in high places. They were of that level. The extreme right wing, however, were against the Romans and wanted to lead a revolt against them.

Of course, the high priests and company would try to restrain them. They made out, (and perhaps they partly thought it was true, who knows?) that Jesus was another of these hot-headed extremists who, when all the thousands of people were gathered in Jerusalem, would start a riot on purpose, for political reasons. So they communicated this to Pilate, but Pilate saw that it was quite false. So that is the first thing to be said about Master Pilate.

Did Pilate have a sort of respect for the dignity of the person set before him?

Yes, he certainly had that respect. You see from John's account when he heard that he'd claimed to be Son of God, and Pilate wouldn't have understood that except in pagan terms, he was the more afraid. On the other hand, Pilate was an unprincipled brute. He gave way to the priests because they had him blackmailed. He tried to get his own back on them by writing: 'This is the King of the Jews'. On the other hand, he did allow them to crucify Christ.

In Matthew's account and Luke's account, Pilate wanted to release him. He knew that 'for envy' they had delivered him up, but their voices and those of the crowd prevailed (see Matthew 27:18). It was liable to be a riot in Jerusalem if he let Jesus go, for the priests had worked on the crowd, and they were shouting their heads off. Pilate could not have afforded a riot in Jerusalem, politically speaking. Tiberius Caesar at Rome would want to know what on earth he was doing letting a riot occur. Israel: Jerusalem and Samaria (and Jerusalem in particular) was a very disliked province by the Romans, and particularly by the Roman governors. It was very difficult to manage, and it was liable to explode at any time.