Crucifixion of Jesus Christ

Jesus of Nazareth was executed by crucifixion under Roman governor Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, during the period of Roman occupation of Judea. The event is documented in the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and referenced in some historical accounts, such as those by the Jewish historian Josephus and Roman historian Tacitus.

The Gospels indicate that some Jewish religious authorities, including members of the Sanhedrin, accused Jesus of claiming to be the Messiah and of challenging the religious and social order. According to the texts, they brought Jesus to the Roman authorities, arguing that he claimed to be “King of the Jews,” which could be seen as sedition against Rome.

The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, conducted a trial. Pilate offered the crowd the choice to release either Jesus or Barabbas, a prisoner described as a criminal involved in insurrection. According to the Gospels, the crowd chose Barabbas to be released and requested Jesus’ crucifixion. Roman soldiers carried out the crucifixion, following Roman legal procedures for capital punishment at the time.

Historical sources note that crucifixion was a standard Roman method for executing those accused of rebellion or sedition. The combination of local religious authority involvement and Roman legal procedures resulted in the execution of Jesus, widely regarded as innocent by historians examining the evidence of charges and trial accounts.

In Matthew, the Roman governor washes his hands of Jesus’ blood while the Jews proclaim, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matt 27:25). John’s Gospel portrays Jews as wanting to kill Jesus throughout his ministry (John 5:18, John 7:1, John 8:37). Similar sentiments are found elsewhere, including writings by Paul, who, himself a Jew, had once persecuted Christians (1Thess 2:14-15, Phil 3:5-6).

According to the New Testament accounts, the incident in the Temple is a key moment in the sequence of events leading to Jesus’ crucifixion, and it did provoke anger among the religious authorities of the time. Let me lay it out factually, based on the sources themselves

What happened (facts from the texts)

• Jesus entered the Temple in Jerusalem.
• He drove out the money changers and sellers of sacrificial animals.
• He overturned tables and accused them of turning God’s house into a “den of thieves.”
• This was a direct challenge to the Temple authorities — the chief priests and scribes — because it disrupted their economic and religious operations.

Immediate Reaction (from the texts)

• The religious leaders became hostile toward Jesus.
• They began plotting how to kill him, according to the Gospel accounts (Mark 11:18, John 11:53).

Connection to the Crucifixion

• This incident is considered one of the catalysts for the arrest and trial of Jesus.
• The Sanhedrin (Jewish council of leaders) played a role in arresting Jesus and bringing charges before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.
• According to the Gospels:
  • The crowd asked for Barabbas, a criminal, to be released.
  • Jesus, an innocent man by the accounts, was handed over to be crucified by the Romans.
• The New Testament emphasizes that Roman execution was the method, but the Jewish authorities were involved in bringing Jesus to trial and advocating for his death.

Acts 2:22–23
22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, the man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—
23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

Acts 4:10–12
10 Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.
11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.
12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Acts 5:30
The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

Acts 7:52-53
52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered.
53 You who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.

Acts 10:39-40
39 We are witnesses of all that he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.
40 But God raised him on the third day and caused him to be seen.

Acts 13:27-30
27 For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning him.
28 Though they could charge him with nothing deserving death, yet they asked Pilate to have him killed.
29 And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.
30 But God raised him from the dead.

Luke describes this in typically varied and colourful language: the Jews delivered (3:13), denied (3:13-14), condemned (13:27), betrayed (7:52), killed (2:23; 10:39; 13:28), murdered (7:52), crucified (2:23; 2:36; 4:10), and hanged (5:30; 10:39) him.

It is the Jews who insist on Jesus' death while Pilate finds him innocent and wishes to release him (3:13; 13:28). There are two possible exceptions. The "lawless men" of 2:23 could be Jews, Gentiles, or both, and Conzelmann thus suggests that while originally it referred to Gentiles (cf. Luke 18: 31-33; 24:7) in its present context it refers to Jews. More obvious is the interpretation of Ps. 2:1-2 in Acts 4:27-30 where "Herod and Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel" conspire in Jesus' death and thus fulfil God's predestined plan. This apparently runs counter to both the general tenor of the speeches and the Lukan passion narrative where, although the Romans are implicated, they have at most a passive and unwilling role. Wilckens suggests, therefore, that the passion interpretation of Ps. 2:1-2 is pre-Lukan. He finds confirmation of this in the identification of Herod and Pilate with the "kings and rulers" of Psalm 2, since Luke's normal term for Herod is "tetrarch" and the term "rulers" usually refers to Jewish rather than Gentile leaders (especially in the passion narrative). On the other hand, the reference to Herod is suspiciously Lukan and the unusual use of "kings and rulers" may be due precisely to their presence in a quotation. Since nothing is said specifically about Jesus' death, it may be that Luke uses Ps. 2:1-2 to confirm only that the whole world conspired against Jesus--either energetically, like the Jews, or reluctantly, like Pilate. At any rate, this brief' allusion to the role of Roman officialdom detracts little from the overwhelming impression throughout the speeches of Jewish culpability.

This impression is confirmed by the observation that, whether Pilate is mentioned (3:13-18) or not (as in most cases), it is suggested that the Jews were even responsible for the typically Roman act of crucifixion. A possible exception appears in Acts 13:28 where the Jews ask Pilate "to have him killed" which, if one turns to Luke's passion narrative to see what happened, depends in turn on the ambiguous "as they led him away" in Luke 23:26 which could refer to Jews or Romans (cf. Luke 24:20). There is also the curious reference to the Jews removing Jesus from the cross and burying him (Acts 13:29) which, at least in tone, is not the most natural way to refer to the sympathetic description which Luke gives of the actions of Joseph of Arimathea in his earlier narrative (Luke 23:50-53). Moreover, the actions which the Jews take against Jesus are dramatized by the victim~ innocence, which is implicit throughout and explicit in 3:13-15 and 13:28. Their behaviour had neither legal nor moral justification, as is illustrated by their preference for Barabbas the "murderer" to Jesus the "author of life" (3:14-15).

Luke's case against the Jews is bolstered in at least two other ways: on the one hand the forms of address, especially in 3:17 and 13:27, indicate that not only the Jewish leaders but also the people at large were responsible for Jesus' death; on the other hand, what the Jews did to Jesus was the culmination of their disobedience to God and their crimes against the prophets (7:52). And it may be that yet another factor has to be brought into play, namely, that the soteriological significance of Jesus' death is never made explicit in the missionary speeches and is rarely apparent elsewhere in Luke-Acts. The use of the word "servant" (pais, 3:13, 26; 4:27, 30) and the references to Jesus "hanging on a tree" (5:30; 10:39; 13:29) may have traditional connotations, but the most that can be said is that "Luke has taken over certain traditions regarding the meaning of the death of Jesus but he has not in any way developed them or drawn attention to them.'' The longer reading in Luke 22:19-20 and the reference to the church as having been "obtained by his own blood" in Acts 20:28 are not to be overlooked, and a practical theologia crucis, understood as a daily bearing of the cross modelled on the careers of Jesus and his apostles, is clearly a matter of some interest to Luke. Yet the failure of Luke to develop the positive notion of Jesus' death as an atonement, even though he is aware of it, means that there is little to counterbalance the negative emphasis on Jewish culpability. Of course, this is not necessarily a deliberate move on Luke's part, for it may well be that Paul's concentration on this theme makes him, rather than Luke, the exception in early Christianity, or that the atonement was an inner-church theme and not part of the missionary kerygma. The effect, however, whether intended or not, is that our attention is focused without distraction on the accusations against the Jews.

2 Thess. 1:14-16
14 For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same thing from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out and displeased God and opposed all men by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins.
15 But God's wrath has come upon them at last.