John 18:28-32

John 18:28 Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters. It was early morning. They did not enter the headquarters themselves; otherwise they would be defiled and unable to eat the Passover.

John 18:29 So Pilate exited to them and said, “What charge are you presenting against this man?”

John 18:30 They answered him, “If this man weren’t a criminal, we wouldn’t have handed him over to you.”

John 18:31 Pilate told them, “You take him and judge him according to your law.” “It’s not legal for us to put anyone to death,” the Jews declared.

John 18:32 They said this so that Jesus’s words might be fulfilled indicating what kind of death he was going to die.

Jesus was marked for death, but not just any death. He knew himself that he was destined for death on the cross. It was a cruel and public spectacle of a death. But he was going to face it for our redemption.

bought with a Roman cross

Paul’s words in Galatians 3:13–14 strike at the heart of the crisis facing the Gentile believers. They were being pressured to adopt a false gospel—a message insisting that God’s favor required becoming Jewish, taking on the Mosaic Law, and embracing the identity markers of Israel. This teaching implied that Christ’s work was insufficient unless supplemented by human effort and cultural conformity. Paul responds by taking them straight to the cross.

He reminds them that Christ redeemed humanity from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse in their place. The quotation from Deuteronomy—“Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—is not incidental. It highlights the shocking means God chose to accomplish redemption: a Roman cross, a symbol of shame, foreign domination, and public humiliation. Yet that very instrument of death became the doorway to life. The cross did not reinforce ethnic boundaries; it shattered them. It opened the blessing of Abraham to all nations, fulfilling God’s ancient promise that Abraham’s family would become a blessing to the world.

Paul’s argument is simple and profound. If salvation required becoming Jewish, then the cross would be unnecessary. But the cross stands at the center of God’s plan, and its purpose was to bring Gentiles fully into the family of Abraham—not by law, but by faith. The blessing promised to Abraham was never limited to one ethnicity. It was always aimed outward, always intended to embrace the nations. Through Christ’s sacrificial death, Gentiles receive the same inheritance, the same covenant blessing, and the same Spirit promised long ago.

The Spirit’s presence is the final proof. The Gentile believers had already received the Spirit through faith, not through law. Their experience confirmed Paul’s message: God had acted decisively through Christ, and the cross—not circumcision, not Torah observance—was the means of redemption. The Spirit was the seal of that redemption, the living evidence that God’s promise had reached them.

This passage continues to speak with clarity today. It reminds believers that salvation is God’s work from beginning to end, accomplished through Christ’s self‑giving love. It warns against any teaching that adds human requirements to divine grace. And it celebrates the wide embrace of God’s promise, extended to all peoples through the crucified and risen Lord.

Lord, thank you for our redemption bought with a Roman cross.