Last week when we left Jesus, he had confounded Annas’ attempt to interrogate him. Annas having nothing left sends Jesus to his son-in-law Caiaphas. John does not record for us the two additional trails of Jesus before Caiaphas, but we can read of them in the other Gospels (i.e. Matt 26:57-68). Basically, Caiaphas questions Christ again, calls up some witnesses who cannot get their stories straight, and then Christ claims again to be God. They then have a third trial after sunrise, since the first two were illegal under Jesus law, but that was just a formality. That brings us to where we are this week in the text with the Jews bringing Christ before Pilate….

In our last study we read the first half of John 18 in which was the account of the arrest of Jesus in the garden. This week we will rejoin the narrative right after the arrest, and just after most of the disciples have fled. Jesus alone is taken away by the officers and soldiers that had assembled to collect Him…

As we begin this chapter Jesus has finished His prayer and now He and the eleven remaining disciples are heading up to the garden of Gethsemane. This transition marks the end of his private ministry to the disciples, and is the beginning of final leg in the journey to the cross…