"28 Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate went outside to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” 30 They answered him, “If this man were not doing evil, we would not have delivered him over to you.” 31 Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” The Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.” 32 This was to fulfil the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
33 So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” 35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” 37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him. 39 But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” 40 They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber."
John 18:28-40
If Pilate had only said what he said in 39 in a different way, a great deal might have been accomplished even at that late point, humanly speaking. He was uneasy, of course; he knew that he had no cause for sentencing Christ to death, apart altogether from his own personal situation. He knew that Christ had done nothing worthy of death, and he wanted genuinely and sincerely to release Him. But he was temporising, and he wanted to please everybody. He did not want to antagonise the Jews; to get in the wrong with them might mean a bad report to Tiberius in Rome, and this could jeopardise his prospects career-wise. But he also did not want to penalise this, as he knew, innocent prisoner. So his mind, agile as an eel, thought of this solution. This is the Passover time, and I sometimes release a prisoner in amnesty. Let us just release Jesus, and that should satisfy everyone. Pass the sentence, say He is guilty, then we will release Him. Such was his reasoning. But when you retreat from the gates of the kingdom of God you have already mortgaged yourself to the evil one, and you are no longer under your own control, but his. And so what Pilate said in 39 was given a subtle twist from the evil one. What he had meant to say was, 'Will you therefore that I release unto you Jesus of Nazareth?' It is just possible that in so saying he might have carried the people with him. But instead, the perverse principle now gripping his heart made him say the one phrase calculated to inflame the Jews' ire - 'Shall I release - not Jesus of Nazareth, but the King of the Jews?' It was like waving a red rag before a bull. And they cried, 'Not this man, but Barabbas'.