Give Us Barabbas

If it hadn’t been for some truly remarkable circumstances, Barabbas would have remained unknown to history. He was just another one of the Sicarii (“dagger-men”) who assassinated Roman officials in a vain hope of driving them from Palestine.

Such men occasionally managed to gain a small following and create serious trouble. In 6 B.C., Judas the Galilean led a tax revolt, for example, but the Romans quickly executed him and scattered his followers.

The Roman authorities had arrested Barabbas and others on charges of insurrection and murder (Mark 15:7; Luke 23:19). The prisoners knew what awaited them — crucifixion, a grisly form of execution reserved for political criminals. The gruesome spectacle of nailing rebels to an upraised cross to die of asphyxiation was a decisive statement about Rome’s power and intolerance of political opposition.

But Barabbas was not to die in that way. The arrest of Jesus, the political maneuverings of Caiaphas the high priest and of Herod and Pilate (Luke 23:6–12), as well as the custom of releasing a prisoner during Passover (Mark 15:6), combined to let Barabbas go free.

His liberty was finally secured by the cries of the mob to release him (John 18:40). Pilate found it hard to believe that the crowd actually preferred to pardon Barabbas. When they kept demanding that Jesus be crucified, Pilate asked, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests replied, “We have no king but Caesar!” so the governor released Barabbas (19:15; Matt. 15:15). How ironic that a revolutionary against Rome was released by the cry, “We have no king but Caesar!”

Taken from The Modern Life Study Bible