Who is Barabbas?

One of the most fascinating aspects of Jesus’ Passion History is how Jesus’ trial, and its outcome, drastically alters the fate of a man named Barabbas.

Barabbas is mentioned by all four Evangelists. Matthew says he was a “notorious prisoner” (Mt 27:16). Mark says that he was in prison “with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising” (Mk 15:7). (“The Uprising” seems to have been a specific, well-known event.) Luke says that he had “been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder” (Lk 23:19). And John says that “he had taken part in a rebellion” (Jn 18:40).

The first three Evangelists also tell us that he was released. (John doesn’t cover that detail again, assuming that his readers already have some familiarity with the story of Jesus.) In fact, how he came to be released probably tells us better than anything else just how horrible a man Barabbas was.

Pilate was bound and determined to get Jesus acquitted of the charges leveled against him by the Jews. Yes, he knew Jesus was innocent, and Jesus unsettled him. But his unwillingness to give in to the Jews’ demands influenced his course of action just as much, if not more. Philo, a Jewish philosopher and historian, and a contemporary of Jesus, said that Pilate had a “very inflexible disposition,” was “very merciless as well as very obstinate,” and that he did not wish “to do any thing which could be acceptable to his [Jewish] subjects” (On the Embassy to Gaius, 301, 303).

Thus, if Pilate truly thought that by giving the Jews only two choices – to release Jesus, or to release Barabbas – Jesus would be set free, then we can detect just how horrible a criminal Barabbas was.

However, Pilate’s plan backfired, because he underestimated the Jewish leaders’ determination to have Jesus executed and because he had backed himself into a corner. By giving the Jews a choice between Jesus and Barabbas, he had already unwittingly declared Jesus guilty. For if the Jewish leaders did choose to release Barabbas – something Pilate didn’t think would happen in his wildest dreams – then Pilate would really have no choice but to condemn Jesus to death, since he had already put the two men on the same plane.

And that’s just what the Jewish leaders did. So, in the end, “Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified” (Mk 15:15).

Most Christians know that about Barabbas. But since this is the only Barabbas the Bible mentions, many Christians probably don’t know just how common a name Barabbas was.

“Barabbas” is actually an English transliteration of a Greek transliteration. (A transliteration is different from a translation. For example, a translation of the Greek word χάρις is “grace.” A transliteration of the Greek word χάρις is karis or charis. A transliteration is simply an attempt to spell and/or pronounce a foreign word using letters from one’s own alphabet.) “Barabbas” in Greek is a transliteration of the Aramaic words בַּר אַבָּא, which, if we were to transliterate them straight into English (instead of through Greek), would be “Bar Abba.”

In the Talmud, the legend is told of a man named Samuel who wanted to talk to his deceased father about an unresolved financial matter. So he went to the cemetery and told the other spirits, “I am looking for Abba.” They replied, “There are many by the name of Abba here.” So he said, “I am looking for Abba Bar Abba.” They replied, “There are also many by the name of Abba Bar Abba here.” When he finally clarified that he was looking for Abba Bar Abba the father of Samuel, they were able to help him (Berakoth 18b).
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You see, Abba itself (or Abbas in Greek) was a common Jewish name, which simply means, “My father” (cf. Mk 14:36; Ro 8:15; Gal 4:6). So if your name was Abba and you had a son, you might very well name him (or nickname him) Bar Abba (or Barabbas in Greek), which means, “Son of Abba” or “Son of my father.” And, as you can see from the meaning, even if your name wasn’t Abba, you could still easily give your son that name.

In fact, which of you men reading this could not have received that name? Who of you is not a son or daughter of your father? It’s almost the Jewish equivalent of the English phrase “Joe Everyman.”

That merits pause for thought. Joe Everyman was bound in a prison on death row for committing murder and rebellion. Suddenly he hears a Roman soldier come keys-a-jingling to his cell. The soldier pulls out his keys, unlocks the cell door, and tells Joe Everyman, “You are free to go. They are crucifying a man named Jesus in your place.” Another verdict – “not guilty” – given to the guilty.

Make no mistake, Barabbas was a real criminal who was really set free on that day in history about 1,981 years ago. But he was also a picture, a window into the courtroom of another, greater judge declaring a verdict that day – declaring a verdict about Jesus and a verdict about us.

The Jewish leaders and Pontius Pilate declared Jesus guilty for sinful reasons – the former out of envy and dissatisfaction with Jesus’ teaching, the latter out of selfish ambition, self-preservation, and convenience. So does our sinful nature every day, for the same sinful reasons.

But God the Father also declared Jesus guilty, and he did so for a completely righteous reason. It was the reason that a guilty criminal with an “Everyman” kind of name went free. It was the reason Isaiah states plainly in chapter 53: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of all of us. … By oppression and judgment he was taken away. … Yet it was the LORD’S will to crush him and cause him to suffer. … For he bore the sin of many.” Or as St. Paul says, “The One who had no experience with sin God made to be sin for us, so that we in turn might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Co 5:21).

There is a day coming; it’s called Judgment Day. It is a day on which God the Righteous Judge will announce his verdict about us. The verdict that he will announce on that day in the future is the same verdict he announced on that day in the past: Jesus was guilty; you are not. For his sake, you are not guilty.

So the verdict, “worthy of death,” is not only the Jewish leaders’ verdict, it is not only Pilate’s verdict, it is not only our sinful nature’s verdict, but it is also God’s verdict, and so it is also the verdict of our new man, the verdict of faith, for completely different reasons. It is the verdict of faith, because faith believes that Jesus wanted to bear our guilt for us, that he wanted to suffer God’s wrath and punishment in our place, that he wanted us, and everyone, like Barabbas, to go innocent and free.

Who is Barabbas? In a way, he is you. In a way, he is me.

And because we, like Barabbas, are acquitted in Jesus’ innocence due to Jesus’ condemnation in our sin, which was exactly what God the Father wanted, God the Father therefore raised his Son from the dead so that now he too stands guilty no more (Romans 6:9-10). And Jesus now eagerly waits for the day when he will return and raise us from the dead and take us to be with him in the home of all those believe in him, the home of all those who are, by God’s own declaration, “Not guilty,” the home of all those who are, by the grace and work of Jesus, Barabbases, sons of his Father.

A blessed Good Friday and Resurrection festival to you all.