John 18:35 Meaning and Explanation

Pilate bristles at the suggestion that the question is his own: Am I a Jew? The quarrel, he insists, is not his — thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. He presses for the underlying offense: What hast thou done?

Without knowing it, Pilate has spoken one of the saddest lines in Scripture: he came unto his own, and his own received him not (John 1:11). As for what Jesus has done — he has healed, fed, forgiven, raised the dead, and spoken words of eternal life; there is no crime to name. The only deed that brought him to this judgment hall is love, for he came to give himself for the life of the world (John 6:51).