Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, “I find no fault in Him at all.” (vv.37-38)
In our text Jesus' answer to this question, "Are You a king then?" interested Pilate. He didn’t mind religious leaders among the Jews, even crazy ones, as long as they kept the peace and did not challenge the rule of Rome. A rival king though might change the status quo, and Pilate wanted to investigate this.
In His response Jesus did not deny that He was a king. In fact He insisted that He was born a king, and to be a different kind of King. He came to be a King of Truth, that He should bear witness to the truth.
Pilate’s cynical response, "What is truth?" showed he thought Jesus’ claim to be a King of Truth was foolish, and that there was no truth in the kind of spiritual kingdom Jesus represented. For Pilate, soldiers and armies were truth, Rome was truth, Caesar was truth, and political power was truth.
This exchange with Jesus was the closest Pilate would come to life’s greatest discovery. The Roman politician had asked the right question of the right Person, and his answer was standing before him. But instead of falling to his knees in repentance, confession, and faith, he could only pass off the answer by concluding, “I find no fault in Him.”
Sooner or later, all of us find ourselves in Pilate’s position, where we must decide what to do with the Man who claims what no other can claim—that He is the truth. Millions of people down through the centuries have found Jesus’ life, His words, and His resurrection to be convincing evidence of His credibility. And they have concluded that knowing the truth must begin with a personal relationship with Christ.
Have you found the answer to life’s most important question? If not, consider Jesus’ statement in John 14:6.
The Truth: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)
