The True King
Sunday Last before Advent/Christ the King, Year B 2024
The kingdom or kingship of God may not seem to be a prominent theme in John (to whom we jump again, for this last Sunday of the year), although it is the content of Jesus’ preaching for the other Gospels. It is nevertheless present in John, in its own way. In John’s Gospel Jesus was recognized as king very early on, by Nathanael (1:49). Jesus discussed the kingdom of God with Nicodemus (chapter 3), and avoided being made king as his popularity grew (6:15). Then, as in all the Gospels, he had entered the holy city in triumph being acclaimed as king (12:13-15), perhaps more clearly so in John than in the other versions.
So Jesus’ kingship matters to John; we could say John is more interested in Jesus himself as king than in the reign of God as his message. Of course the Synoptics do not see these as separate either, but there a difference in how this plays out. It is arguably Jesus’ own present but (to some) unseen kingship, his authority, that is in view for John, rather than a future kingdom or reign of God.
Jesus the true king will now speak at his trial before Pilate about the nature of his own reign. The many depictions of this scene in popular culture tend to turn Pilate into some version of a world-weary philosopher, and sometimes even a sympathetic or tragic figure. While John’s version of the story has contributed most to these ideas, Pilate the Roman governor represents something more than human complexity here; he is the embodiment of the power against which Jesus’ ministry has been pitted all along, that “world” which has not known him. So the premise of this exchange is not just a psychological drama, but a clash of powers and of truths.
Pilate already knows the answer to the first fateful question (“Are you the King of the Jews?”), at least on his own terms. This question is verbally identical in all four Gospels, which is remarkable. There is no serious possibility however that the homeless Galilean itinerant Jesus is a “king” of any kind, at least in the sense that Pilate would understand that term—or how we would, normally. The stress in the Greek text on “you” underlines the scorn; we could reasonably translate this as “You? The King of the Jews?” The serious part of the question for Pilate however is whether Jesus has even made such a claim, which would make him liable to death as an opponent of Roman rule, however absurd his aspiration.
While the text of Pilate’s question is shared across the Gospel tradition, John provides a somewhat different version of the answer. The three Synoptic Gospels have Jesus answer (identically again) “you (just) said so,” but here Jesus asks a question in return. Barnabas Lindars suggests this whole exchange in John can be understood as a commentary on that simpler version.1 The counter-question also makes sense in the narrative, because Pilate’s initial interrogation was unexplained here. Why ask that? Yet the real reason for Jesus’ response seems to be subtler; it underlines the profoundly different understandings of kingship and different sources of authority at work.
When Pilate responds “I am not a Jew, am I?” this answer also works at two levels. Pilate demonstrates the kind of misunderstanding that so often appears in John’s narrative as a foil for Jesus’ explanation or answer. This also points to the fact that the Jewish (i.e., Jewish authorities’) and Roman contributions to this exercise are somewhat different in kind. Jesus and other Jews are contending over the nature of God’s promises and God’s truth; Pilate as the representative of Rome is the sinister power arbitrating between them, or purporting to do so.
The center of this passage—only one part of the whole exchange between Jesus and Pilate—comes now: “My kingdom is not from this world.” By translating thus the NRSV has already helped us to address the problem that has long been attached to this text, manifest in the more traditional version “not of this world.” The Greek preposition can mean either or both “of” or “from,” but the way we interpret it here becomes crucial. The “other-worldly” aspect is both central to this statement but also risks being profoundly misread.
What Jesus does not mean is that his kingdom is in heaven, not on earth. He means that his power is divine, eternal, and truthful. “From” thus helps make this a bit clearer; it refers to the origin of his authority, not its geographical scope. He is the King of Israel and/or of the Jews, after all. So too, Jesus does not mean that his power pertains to some invisible realm of spiritual matters as opposed to material ones. His power is different, above all because it is true.
While “the world” is the place which Jesus came to save in John (cf. 3:16), it can also be the way the world actually is; “this world” tends to be used this way especially. “The world” is neither just the physical world (the earth or the universe), nor the human present (our life and existence), except insofar as these are under the power of evil, and estranged from God. So when Jesus says “my kingdom is not from this world” we should not imagine some deferral or deflection from a concrete claim to rule in the present, so much as invoking a higher authority than the one in front of him. “Unlike your temporary and pretentious power, Pilate, mine is established in truth.”
When Jesus gives the example of his followers’ non-violence to illustrate this, it does mean in part that he is not seeking to displace Pilate or the Emperor and become king in the immediate sense. However, and just as importantly, it also demonstrates that God’s reign cannot be established by violence. This is not quietism, or a retreat from material and social ethics, but a different understanding of power itself and truth itself. Repeating “my kingdom is not from here,” Jesus thus reiterates not a lack of interest in human affairs, but the fact that he has no truck with how they are managed by a brutal figure such as Pilate.
So Pilate returns to his judicial quest; Jesus seems to have admitted that he is a king, and hence is subject to Roman punishment as a rebel. Jesus’ response (“You say that I am a king”) also returns almost to the Synoptic version, attributing the acknowledgement of his kingship to Pilate himself. However it is also clear Pilate does not understand what is at stake, either in kingship or in truth.
Jesus “came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (v. 37). The reading cuts off here, but Pilate’s famous next words are “what is truth?” Here we must again set aside the idea of the philosopher and look into the face of the monster; Pilate is simply acknowledging that the truth means nothing to him. Jesus has claimed not only to be king, but to represent the truth of things, the fact that the love of God which spurns Pilate’s violence and the insecurity it betrays is the real order of the universe. To celebrate Jesus’ kingship is not to look away from the world we know, but to see it as it might be, ruled by the true power of love.
The Gospel of John. New Century Bible Commentary. London: Marshall, Morgan, and Scott, 1972, 558.
Many thanks Andrew
Thank you! There's a wonderful cornucopia of meaning to consider in your presentation. For now, I'll take this: if one "must" use violence to establish a regime, that regime is never of God.