Luke 23:1-49
Introduction
Last week, we examined how Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples and denied by a member of his inner circle. These actions were magnified because they were performed by close friends. We are most vulnerable to those who are closest to us. Yet, God made us relational beings. We need one another. The rewards of close relationships are many, but life’s greatest heartbreaks come from those who are closest to us. Today we examine the great price that Jesus paid for our salvation. The sinless one, the spotless Lamb of God, took our sins and our punishment on his body at Calvary, so that we could repent of our sin, believe the gospel, and enjoy eternal life.
The Trial and Conviction
After Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, he endured the mockery of a so-called trial before the chief priest and elders. Jesus was taken to a holding area where he was verbally abused by the guards. They mocked him and beat him even though he had not been judged at this point, assuming his guilt. The guards said many blasphemous things about Jesus. Don’t miss the irony. Jesus, the guiltless one, was accused of blasphemy when he was simply telling the truth about his identity. He was the son of God. At the trial, he is being abused by blasphemous guards.
With the dawning of a new day, Jesus was taken before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Council. Their role was much like that of the Supreme Court in the United States. They asked Jesus plainly if he was the Messiah. Jesus responded that if he told them, they would not believe him. He boldly declared before the hostile council that from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God. The prosecutors asked, are you then the Son of God. Jesus responded by saying, “You say that I am.” I am is a clear reference to the deity of Jesus that would not have been lost on his Jewish questioners. When Moses encountered the living God at the burning bush in Exodus, he asked the Lord God how he should respond if the people of Israel asked him the name of God. The Lord simply replied, “I am who I am.” Yahweh, is the Hebrew word for the verb “I am.” When Jesus said he was the I am, he was rightly claiming to be divine. The mob used Jesus testimony against him because they could not comprehend the honest response that Christ gave them. They could not conceive that Christ was divine.
Because the Jewish did not have the authority to impose capital punishment. They took Jesus to Pilate, the Roman governor, and changed the charges from religious ones to political ones, believing that Pilate would be more likely to condemn Jesus as an insurrectionist. Pilate was troubled by the Jewish leaders’ determination to put Jesus to death. In Matthew’s account of the trial, Pilate’s wife sent word to him while he was sitting on the judgment seat to have nothing to do with this righteous man. She had suffered much that day because of a dream she had about Jesus (Matt 27:19). Most people from western cultures disregard the validity of revelation through dreams. However, in many contemporary cultures, people claim to have encounters with God through this medium. When I was in Turkey some years ago leading baseball camps, I heard the testimony of many who had encounters with Jesus through dreams. Some of them, who were former Muslims, came to faith in Christ with no other witness than the revelation of God through a dream. In the culture of Jesus day, people took dreams seriously. As Pilot questioned Jesus, he discovered that he was a Galilean Jew. When he learned that Jesus belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod who was in Jerusalem at the time.
When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad. He had wanted to see Jesus for some time since he had heard about the signs he performed. He hoped to see Jesus do a miracle for his amusement. When Herod questioned Jesus for some time, the Lord did not respond, infuriating Herod. The chief priests and scribes stood by vehemently accusing him. Herod and his soldiers treated Jesus with contempt and mocked him. They went so far as to array Jesus in splendid clothing to extend their mockery of the King. Then he sent Jesus back to Pilate (Luke 23:6-11).
Pilate questioned Jesus again, but Jesus remained silent. Pilate tried to avoid passing judgment on the Lord. He called together the chief priests and the rulers of the people. The Jews charged that Jesus was misleading the people, but after questioning Jesus, he told them he found no fault in this man. Herod agreed that Jesus was not guilty. Pilate proclaimed that Jesus had done nothing deserving of death. He then pronounced that he would punish Jesus and then release him.
It was the custom at the Passover feast for the governor to release any prisoner that the Jews wanted. Barabbas was a notorious prisoner who was convicted of insurrection and murder. Pilate asked the crowd if they wanted him to release Barabbas or Jesus. Pilate saw through the ruse of the religious leaders, knowing that they brought charges against Jesus out of jealousy. The chief priests and elders persuaded the crowd to ask for the release of Barabbas. Pilate was troubled by their response. He asked them what he should do with Jesus who is called the Christ (the anointed one)? The people cried out, “Crucify him.” Pilate asked them, “Why? What evil has he done? The crowd gave no reason but cried all the louder for Jesus to be crucified.
Pilate was afraid that the people were about to start a riot. Craig Blomberg states, “Pilate . . . is too insecure to uphold the principles of Roman law or even to follow his wife’s intuition. He knew that his Roman supervisors would question his ability to rule if a riot occurred. So, he acquiesced to the crowd. However, Pilate took water and washed his hands publicly before the crowd declaring, “I am innocent of this man’s blood, see to it yourselves.” However, Pilate was far from innocent. He could never wash away the stain of his part in the crucifixion of Christ. His choice was expedient, but he still condemned an innocent man to death. The crowd cried out, “Let his blood be on us and our children.” Their malicious intent not only extended to themselves, but they also imposed their children in their sin. Pilate set Barabbas free and ordered Jesus to be scourged. The scourging was a “Roman judicial penalty, consisting of a severe beating with a multi-lashed whip containing embedded pieces of bone and metal.” Jesus suffered as he received 39 lashes from a Roman soldier who whipped him. As the whip wrapped around Christ, the bone and metal cut deeply into his flesh. Then the soldier pulled the whip away from Christ’s body, only to strike him again. Some prisoners were killed during the lashing. Then they took Jesus away to be crucified (also see the parallel text in Matt 27:15-26).
Via Delarosa: The Road to Suffering
As Jesus was carrying his cross to Calvary, Simon of Cyrene was pressed into service to carry the Lord’s cross for him. Normally, a convicted criminal was expected to bear the horizontal beam for his own cross to the place of his execution. The Scriptures offer no reason for this action. It was likely due to Jesus’ physical condition at this point. Robert Stein notes, “The scourging that preceded crucifixion was in itself so severe that it could cause death.” The text reveals that Cyrene was Simon’s hometown which is located in modern day Libya. Simon’s ethnicity is not recorded in the text, and therefore, remains a mystery. However, many believe that Simon was a dark-skinned African man. Since the western world has often painted a conception of Jesus as a Caucasian, such a notion is certainly incorrect historically. The mission of God has been global in nature since the beginning (see Gen 1:26-27; 12:1-3; Isa 49:6; Luke 19:10, Acts 1:8, 10:1-11:18; 11:19-20; Eph 2:14, etc.). Therefore, having a dark-skinned African carrying the cross of the Lord to Calvary is reasonable. We must keep in mind the fact that the mission of God is global. A large crowd followed Jesus to the cross including some women who were mourning because of all that had been done to Jesus. He referred to the women as daughters of Jerusalem, telling them not to weep for him, but rather for themselves and their children. He warned that a terrible time of persecution was coming. This prophecy was fulfilled with the persecution and the destruction of the temple in 70 AD by the Romans.
The Crucifixion
Two convicted criminals were also carrying their crosses to be crucified. When they came to the place of the skull (Golgotha or Calvary), Jesus was nailed to the cross. Blomberg states, “His feet [were] nailed together at his ankles at the bottom of a vertical pole, his hands nailed at the wrists to either end of the crossbeam. Crucifixion was undoubtedly one of the most gruesome forms of torture and death humans have ever invented. It involved prolonged suffering for up to several days. The final cause of death was usually asphyxiation, since the victim finally became too weak to lift his head far enough off his chest to gasp for air. Jesus was crucified between the two convicted criminals. Yet, he prayed for those who crucified him asking the Father to forgive them because they were acting in ignorance. An inscription was placed above his head on the cross saying “The King of the Jews.” The chief priests and rulers shouted, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One” (Luke 23:35, ESV). The truth is that if Jesus had saved himself, which he certainly had the power to do, he could not have saved anyone else. He died for our salvation.
Even one of the criminals joined in the mocking of Christ, but the other criminal rebuked him asking if he did not fear God when he was under the same sentence of death. The criminals were justly being punished for their sins, but Jesus had done nothing wrong. The second condemned man asked Jesus to remember him when his kingdom comes. Jesus responded with compassion and grace, telling the man on that very day he would be with Jesus in paradise.
The journey to Calvary and crucifixion probably began shortly after day break. Around noon, darkness covered the land until the ninth hour. This was a supernatural event. Some have offered arguments that it was some kind of eclipse, but the length of the darkness rules out that possibility. Also, Passover occurs during a full moon, eliminating the possibility of an eclipse. Luke employed apocalyptic imagery. The darkness points to God’s displeasure at what was taking place. The spotless Lamb of God was dying for sinful people. This was not the simple death of an innocent Jew. It was the death of righteous prophet who was also God’s Son, the Savior of the world.
In addition to the darkness, the curtain in the temple was torn in two. While there are 13 curtains described in the temple, most likely this curtain was the one at the entrance to the holy of holies. Only the high priest was allowed to enter this area once a year on the day of atonement. There he offered sacrifices for the sins of the people. Do not miss the theological significance of this event. Through the death of the Savior, salvation is open to all. The curtain was torn from the top to the bottom reminding us that God did something for us we could never do for ourselves. Salvation through faith and repentance is God’s work, not man’s. No one can earn salvation, but Christ offers it freely to all who receive him through repentance and faith. Christ’s death on the cross marked the end of the need for sacrificial ceremonies. Christ, the perfect Lamb of God, died once and for all, bearing the sin burden of the whole world, past, present, and future, for all time. No other sacrifice is needed. Now we can come boldly before the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace (Heb 4:16). We no longer need a priest as the intermediary. Jesus himself makes intercession for us before the Father.
Jesus cried out from the cross in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit (Luke 23:47). Then Jesus died. No one took his life from him; he gave it willingly. The centurion glorified God, confessing that Jesus was an innocent man. The crowd who gathered to watch the spectacle went home in sorrow. All who knew Jesus, including the women, stood at a distance taking in all that had transpired. The promised Messiah, the King of the Jews, and the Savior of the world was dead.
It is Friday, but Sunday is coming.
Applications
- Thank God that Jesus chose to give his life willingly for you, to pay your sin debt.
- Seek God’s mercy. You do not deserve the love of the Savior, but God is rich in mercy. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21, ESV).
- Recognize that God did something for you that you could never do for yourself. Humbly repent of your sins and receive the Lord by grace through faith (Eph 2:8-10).