Luke 23:18

My Notes

What Does Luke 23:18 Mean?

"And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas." The crowd, given the choice between Jesus and Barabbas (a convicted insurrectionist and murderer, v. 19), unanimously chooses the criminal. "All at once" (pamplēthei — the whole multitude, all together) means the rejection is total. Not a split decision. Not a narrow margin. Every voice in the crowd demands the criminal's freedom and the innocent man's execution.

The choice is the gospel in compressed form: a guilty man goes free because an innocent man takes his place. Barabbas walks out of prison because Jesus walks into execution. The substitution that the crowd chooses for political reasons becomes the substitution God intended for cosmic reasons.

Reflection Questions

• 1.How is Barabbas' release a picture of your own — the guilty going free because the innocent took your place?
• 2.What does the crowd's unanimity ('all at once') teach about how quickly public opinion turns?
• 3.How does the crowd intending injustice while God intends atonement operate simultaneously?
• 4.Where have you been Barabbas — released from what you deserve because Jesus absorbed it?

Devotional

Away with this man. Give us Barabbas. The crowd chooses a murderer over the Messiah. Unanimously. All at once. Every voice demanding the same thing: release the killer, crucify the innocent.

All at once. The unanimity is the horror. Not a faction within the crowd. The whole crowd. Pamplēthei — the entire multitude. The same city that shouted 'Hosanna' five days ago now shouts 'Away with him.' The same voices that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem demand his removal from it. The fickleness is total. The betrayal is communal.

Release unto us Barabbas. The man they want is a murderer and an insurrectionist. He took lives. He stirred up rebellion. He's in prison because he deserves to be. And the crowd chooses him — specifically, deliberately, when given the alternative of an innocent healer who raised the dead and fed the hungry. The choice is irrational by every standard except one: the crowd's rage has made the rational irrelevant.

But the choice is also the gospel operating in real time — invisible to the crowd but visible to God. A guilty man goes free. An innocent man takes his place. Barabbas walks out of the prison column while Jesus walks in. The substitution the crowd intends as injustice, God intends as atonement. The murderer is released because the innocent accepts the murderer's sentence.

Barabbas is you. The guilty person who goes free because someone innocent took your place. The criminal whose chains were unlocked because the sinless one put his wrists into them. The crowd didn't know they were enacting the gospel. They thought they were choosing a political prisoner over a religious teacher. They were choosing the mechanism of their own salvation.

Away with this man. The most tragic words the crowd ever spoke. And the words that made your freedom possible.

Commentary

Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.

Cross References

Related passages throughout Scripture