“Then Jesus said, ‘You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above. So the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.’”
John 19:11 (NLT)
After the leading priests and temple guards demanded that Jesus be crucified—while He stood beaten and bloodied—Pilate again declared, “I find him not guilty.” The Jewish leaders then named the crime they believed Jesus committed: He claimed to be the Son of God. Their appeal was hypocritical. If they were truly following Jewish law, the punishment would have been stoning, not crucifixion. Still, their words unsettled Pilate.
Pilate took Jesus back into the palace and asserted what he believed was his authority: “Don’t you realize I have the power to release you or crucify you?” Jesus answered with a simple truth. Pilate had no authority of his own. Whatever authority he carried had been given to him from above. He didn’t earn it. God entrusted it to him.
That truth should sober us. The moment we believe authority belongs to us—that we earned it or can use it however we want—it becomes dangerous. But when authority is received as a stewardship from the Lord, held with humility and surrendered back to Him, it can be used well. Gideon understood this. A man from the weakest clan in the weakest tribe was used to lead Israel, not because of who he was, but because he knew who God was.
Jesus then adds, “the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.” It’s tempting to assign blame—to Judas, to Caiaphas, to Annas. But Scripture cautions us against stopping with people. As Paul teaches in Ephesians 6:12, our struggle is not against flesh and blood. The real battle is spiritual. Evil spirits were influencing all of these men. The battle was never ultimately between people—it was between God and Satan.
This is the real fight. Stop fighting people. Stop giving man too much credit. Recognize where authority truly comes from and where deception is at work. When we see the battle clearly, we stop reacting in the flesh and start standing firm in the truth.