sorry! long post... .
thanks, if you read it
[HR][/HR][HR][/HR]
in the clause "therefore the one having delivered me has greater sin" everything in the grammar is singular.
but follow the conversation, Pilate wants only to beat & humiliate Him then release Him, but the Jewish leaders and the crowd are insistent. Pilate is looking for an 'out' because it is his responsibility both to maintain civil peace and to administer justice, but he finds Christ innocent. he is looking to Jesus to give him something to refute the charges, but Jesus does not answer Him.
'will you not even answer me? don't you know i have authority to free or to crucify you?'
Jesus answers this: Pilate would have no authority if it wasn't given to him from heaven -
therefore the one who delivered me is guilty of greater sin. the 'therefore' tells us that 'who delivered has greater sin' is the logical consequence of 'your authority was given to you' -- it's not a standalone statement; it's the conclusion of a chain of conversation and the direct implication of the fact that any authority Pilate has was given to him, ultimately from heaven.
Pilate's implication is that Christ's refusal to answer the charges against Him is irrational, and in a sense, 'sin' given the predicament they face. 'why don't you answer? your life is in the balance'
Christ answers
this implied charge though He doesn't answer the formal criminal charges. He addresses Pilate's own objection, but not what the Jews find objectionable in Him, and does so by using the predicament itself to teach Pilate: Pilate didn't go out and arrest Jesus, and he didn't seek to have Him delivered, but Jesus was delivered to Pilate by others - through Judas, through the Sanhedrin, through Caiphas -- but those who delivered Him to Pilate did not deliver Him with evidence of guilt - because He has no guilt, it is impossible that they did - but they delivered Him nonetheless.
Pilate is expressing that it is wrong for Christ not to answer the charges, and Christ corrects him with that the false witness of those who delivered Him is a greater sin than refusing to answer false witness. authority was given to Pilate from above, rightly, and Christ was delivered to Pilate from below, wrongly. Pilate faces a conundrum because he is being coerced to condemn Christ unjustly and he thinks of Jesus' silence as exacerbating this; the 'one' from below who falsely accuses is guilty of putting Pilate in this position, sinning both against Pilate and against the falsely accused, but what guilt does the innocent one have if He doesn't speak for Himself against every false witness brought against Him?
So though they are speaking in particular about particular people, they are also speaking philosophically about the truth. a plural body of people may be implied, but the language is in the singular case - in the same way that authority was given to Pilate and didn't originate with him, the blasphemy against Christ originated outside the people who carried it out. authority came from above, and sin came from below: you may identify Judas as having been the ((singular)) one who literally delivered Jesus ((though no one has power to actually offer the Lamb, but He offers Himself)) -- but remember that "Satan entered into him" that is, entered into Judas. nowhere else, ever, has it been recorded Satan himself entering a person, so here is your ((singular)) origin of guilt, the evil one, from below. are the rest who participated absolved of guilt? of course not - but just as the one who teaches another to sin is more guilty than the one who practices the sin they were taught, so the singular case of the conversation can be understood by this.
