The Wickedness of the Crucifixion
(27:27–44)
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the
Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him. And they
stripped Him, and put a scarlet robe on Him. And after weaving a
crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right
hand; and they kneeled down before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail,
King of the Jews!” And they spat on Him, and took the reed and
began to beat Him on the head. And after they had mocked Him, they
took His robe off and put His garments on Him, and led Him away to
crucify Him.
And as they were coming out, they found a man of
Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross.
And when they had come to a place called Golgotha,
which means Place of a Skull, they gave Him wine to drink mingled
with gall; and after tasting it, He was unwilling to drink. And when
they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among
themselves, casting lots; and sitting down, they began to keep watch
over Him there. And they put up above His head the charge against Him
which read, “THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” At that time
two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and one on the
left. And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging
their heads, and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple
and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of
God, come down from the cross.” In the same way the chief priests
also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him, and
saying, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of
Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we shall believe in
Him. He trusts in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He takes pleasure
in Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ” And the robbers
also who had been crucified with Him were casting the same insult at
Him. (27:27–44)
The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was the climax of
redemptive history, the focal point of God’s plan of salvation.
God’s redeeming work culminated in the cross, where the Lord Jesus
bore the sins of the world. But also in the crucifixion of Christ the
wickedness of man reached its apex. The execution of the Savior was
the vilest expression of evil in human history, the utter depth of
man’s depravity. The death of Jesus Christ was therefore the
supreme revelation of the gracious love of God while also being the
ultimate expression of the sinfulness of man.
And whereas John’s gospel focuses on the crucifixion
primarily from the perspective of God’s redemptive love and grace,
Matthew’s focus is primarily from the perspective of man’s
wickedness. Man’s wickedness attempted to kill Jesus shortly after
His birth, tried to discredit His teaching, and made every effort to
mislead and corrupt His disciples. Man’s wickedness had betrayed
Him, denied Him, arrested, maligned, and battered Him. But the
incomparable manifestation of man’s wickedness was in His
crucifixion.
David Thomas wrote:
[For thousands of] years
wickedness had been growing. It had wrought deeds of impiety and
crime that had wrung the ages with agony, and often roused the
justice of the universe to roll her fiery thunderbolts of retribution
through the world. But now it had grown to full maturity; it stands
around this cross in such gigantic proportions as had never been seen
before; it works an enormity before which the mightiest of its past
exploits dwindle into insignificance, and pale into dimness. It
crucifies the Lord of life and glory (The Gospel of Matthew
[Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1979 (reprint of 1873 edition)], p. 536)
Jesus’ enemies so hated Him that even His death seemed
to be a disappointment, because it ended their opportunity to spew
venom on Him even as He suffered the agony of crucifixion. The
heartless intensity of the evil words and deeds of those who
participated in His death beggar description.
Matthew 27:27–44 portrays four groups of evil people
at the crucifixion who derided and abused Christ: the ignorant wicked
(vv. 27–37), the knowing wicked (v. 38), the fickle wicked (vv.
39–40), and the religious wicked (vv. 41–44).
The Ignorant Wicked
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the
Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him. And they
stripped Him, and put a scarlet robe on Him. And after weaving a
crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right
hand; and they kneeled down before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail,
King of the Jews!” And they spat on Him, and took the reed and
began to beat Him on the head. And after they had mocked Him, they
took His robe off and put His garments on Him, and led Him away to
crucify Him.
And as they were coming out, they found a man of
Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross.
And when they had come to a place called Golgotha,
which means Place of a Skull, they gave Him wine to drink mingled
with gall; and after tasting it, He was unwilling to drink. And when
they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among
themselves, casting lots; and sitting down, they began to keep watch
over Him there. And they put up above His head the charge against Him
which read, “THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” (27:27–37)
The ignorant wicked were the callous Roman soldiers who
actually performed the crucifixion under orders from Pilate, who
finally had succumbed to the intimidation of the Jewish religious
leaders. The Roman governor had publicly declared Jesus’ innocence
several times, but for fear of a riot that almost certainly would
have cost his career and possibly his life, he capitulated to the
execution. He had perverted Roman justice by agreeing to convict a
man whom no one was able to legitimately charge with a crime against
the state. He had sinned against his own convictions, integrity, and
conscience, and against the truth. He bargained his eternal soul for
temporary security.
In an even worse way, the Jewish leaders had perverted
not only scriptural principles of justice but their own rabbinical
traditions. Although they had been unable to properly charge Jesus
with sin against God, they were determined to destroy Him, whatever
the cost to Scripture, justice, truth, or righteousness.
Although the soldiers of the governor were under
his orders to scourge and crucify Jesus (v. 26), they exhibited their
own wickedness by far exceeding what basic duty required. As they
took Jesus into the Praetorium, they decided to make
public sport of their prisoner and gathered the whole Roman cohort
around Him to watch.
A full Roman cohort amounted to 600 soldiers, and
because this particular cohort served the Roman governor at his
Praetorium at Fort Antonia in Jerusalem, it was probably
composed of elite legionnaires. They were not necessarily all, or
even mostly, Italian, because Rome typically conscripted soldiers
from among its occupied countries. Because most men would be
reluctant to fight against their own countrymen, they were frequently
sent to neighboring regions that spoke the same or similar language.
We can be sure that none of this cohort was Jewish, because Rome had
granted a special exemption of Jews from Roman military service. It
is likely that the contingent in Jerusalem was composed largely of
Syrians, who spoke Aramaic, the most common conversational and trade
language of Palestine.
Because Pilate’s primary headquarters were in
Caesarea, this cohort may have been stationed there, traveling
from place to place with the governor as his military escort. If so,
they would have been even less familiar with Judaism than the average
Roman soldier in Jerusalem and probably had never heard of Jesus. To
them, He was simply another condemned prisoner, whom they were free
to abuse as much as they pleased, as long as he was not killed before
the designated execution. If they considered Jesus to be in any way
unique, it was only in that He had apparently claimed to be some sort
of king. What they did to Him was therefore unrelated to religious or
personal animosity. Their torment of Jesus was wicked and
inexcusable, but it was done out of spiritual ignorance.
Jesus’ face was swollen from the slaps and beatings He
received from the Temple police and was covered with spittle from His
Jewish tormentors. He was bleeding profusely from the scourging, with
terrible lacerations from His shoulders down, exposing muscles,
ligaments, blood vessels, and perhaps even internal organs. Because
He had not spoken for the past hour or so, the soldiers may have
considered Him mentally deranged and worthy only of ridicule. They
played Him as the fool, making sport of the comments they had
overheard about His claim to kingship.
It did not matter to them that Jesus had never
personally harmed them or that technically He was innocent according
to Roman law. They had been trained to obey orders, which frequently
required killing and torture. Jesus had been officially condemned,
and no sense of justice or propriety, much less of mercy or
compassion, tempered their cold-hearted entertainment at Jesus’
expense. Although in an extreme way, they expressed the natural
wickedness of every human heart that is ignorant of God.
Pilate did not initiate the mockery, but neither did he
oppose it. Despite his half-hearted efforts to acquit Jesus, Pilate
was noted for cruelty and mercilessness. Having ordered Jesus’
scourging and crucifixion, he would hardly have had qualms about the
relatively mild abuse of mockery. It is possible that the soldiers
performed their derisive actions under the governor’s amused eye.
The soldiers probably shared their commander’s hatred of Jews and
took this opportunity to vent their malice on a Jew condemned by
fellow Jews. With every nerve in agony and His body quivering in
pain, Jesus became the object of a fiendish game.
Jesus was either naked or nearly naked for the
scourging, after which He was probably clothed with His seamless
inner garment. First, the soldiers stripped Him of that
garment and put a scarlet robe on Him, still further
irritating His exposed, bleeding flesh. The scarlet robe
probably belonged to one of the soldiers, who used it to keep warm
while standing guard on cold nights. Mark and John report that the
robe was purple (Mark 15:17; John 19:2), suggesting that the actual
scarlet color was the closest the soldiers could come to
purple, the traditional color of royalty.
Although it was far from the soldiers’ intent, the use
of scarlet was reminiscent of Isaiah’s declaration that “though
your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they
are red like crimson, they will be like wool” (Isa. 1:18). Just as
the soldiers clothed Jesus in the scarlet robe, He willingly clothed
Himself in the scarlet sins of the world in order that those who
believe in Him might be freed from that sin.
To add to the pain as well as to the ridicule, after
weaving a crown of thorns, the soldiers put it on His head.
Many kinds of thorns were prevalent in Palestine at that time,
and the particular variety used is unknown. The purpose was to mimic
the wreath that Caesar wore on official occasions and that could be
seen on Roman coins that bore his image. As the mock crown was
pressed on His head, blood ran down from the new wounds to
mingle with the blood that already covered the rest of His body. Like
the scarlet robe, the crown of thorns became an unintended symbol of
the sins that Jesus was about to take upon Himself. After the Fall,
thorns and thistles became painful reminders of the curse that sin
had brought to the world (Gen. 3:18), the curse from which the world
ever since has longed to be freed (Rom. 8:22).
Jesus’ face was now even more unrecognizable and His
pain more intense. But still not content, the soldiers next placed a
reed in His right hand. Like the robe and the crown of thorns,
the reed was meant to represent royalty, mimicking a monarch’s
scepter, the symbol of his authority and power. Such a scepter could
also be seen in Caesar’s hand on Roman coins.
To complete the sarcastic taunt, the soldiers even
kneeled down before Him and mocked Him saying, “Hail, King of
the Jews!” The Jewish religious leaders had mocked Jesus as a
prophet (Matt. 26:68), and now the Roman soldiers mocked Him as a
king. Then, just as the Jews had done, they spat on Him,
casting on Him what was considered the ultimate indignity.
Next in their brutal amusement they took the reed
from His hand and, to further ridicule His supposed authority, began
to beat Him on the head, which was already swollen, lacerated,
and bleeding. It was as if to say, “Your kingliness is a joke. Look
how easily we strip you of your dignity and your authority. We beat
you with your own scepter. Where is your power? Where is your royal
army to defend you from your enemies?” From John we learn that they
struck Jesus with their fists as well as with the reed (John 19:3).
One day Christ will wield a true scepter, a rod of iron
with which He will rule the world, including His subdued enemies
(Rev. 19:15). Then the tables will be turned, and the mocking and
derision will be by God of the ungodly. Then He who sits in the
heavens will laugh, and the Lord will scoff at them (Ps. 2:4).
But in His incarnation, Jesus’ humiliation was
essential to God’s plan for the Son, “who emptied Himself, taking
the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by
becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”
(Phil. 2:7–8).
Through all of that torment and pain Jesus said nothing
either in defense or in reproach. He had predicted His mocking, His
suffering, and His crucifixion long before Pilate or his soldiers
knew who He was (Matt. 16:21; 20:18–19). That was God’s plan
countless ages before it was the plan of wicked men, and it was for
that very purpose that He had come to earth. As men fulfilled their
evil and destructive design, God fulfilled His gracious and
redemptive design. Christ was on the divine schedule, which even His
enemies were unwittingly fulfilling in minute detail.
We learn from John that during this time Pilate brought
Jesus out before the Jews, asserting again that he found no fault in
Him. Jesus stood again on the porch of the Praetorium, “wearing the
crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them ‘Behold,
the Man!’ ” (John 19:4–5). Although he had agreed to the
crucifixion and had permitted Jesus to be brutally beaten and mocked,
the governor obviously still hoped, perhaps due to his wife’s
warning, that Jesus’ life could be spared. But “when the chief
priests and the officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, ‘Crucify,
crucify!’ ” As if to wash his hands of the whole unjust affair
again, “Pilate said to them, ‘Take Him yourselves, and crucify
Him, for I find no guilt in Him.’ The Jews answered him, ‘We have
a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to
be the Son of God.’ When Pilate therefore heard this statement, he
was the more afraid” (vv. 6–8). Although they repeated only the
religious charges against Jesus, the clear implication is that the
Jewish leaders were insisting on Rome’s complicity in His
execution. In effect, they refused to crucify Jesus by themselves,
even with Pilate’s permission.
Taking Jesus back into the Praetorium, Pilate asked Him
where He was from but received no answer. When he then told Jesus
that he had power of life and death over Him, the Lord responded,
“You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you
from above; for this reason he who delivered Me up to you has the
greater sin” (John 19:10–11). Although he had little
comprehension of what Jesus meant, Pilate was convinced all the more
of His innocence of any civil crime and once again “made efforts to
release Him, but the Jews cried out, saying, ‘If you release this
Man, you are no friend of Caesar’ ” (v. 12).
Still holding out against them, Pilate brought Jesus to
“the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew,
Gabbatha,” and mockingly said, “Behold your King!” Infuriated
by Pilate’s continued defiance of them, the Jewish leaders “cried
out, ‘Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!’ ” In one last
taunt, Pilate asked, “Shall I crucify your King?” to which the
chief priests hypocritically replied, “We have no king but Caesar.”
Frustrated and exhausted, Pilate resigned himself to the injustice
and “delivered Him to them to be crucified” (John 19:13–16).
As representatives of the people, the chief priests here
pronounced the culminating apostasy of Israel. Rejecting God’s Son,
they publicly, although insincerely, declared allegiance to the pagan
emperor.
Picking up the account at this point, Matthew reports
that after they had mocked Him further, they took His robe
off and put His garments on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him.
Some interpreters suggest that only the cross-beam or
the upright post was carried, but in all probability it was the
entire cross, weighing in excess of 200 pounds, that the victim
carried. He would normally be surrounded by a quaternion, four
soldiers who would escort the prisoner through the crowds to the
place of execution. A placard bearing the prisoner’s indictment was
often placed around his neck, giving notice to others of the high
price to be paid for the crime.
It was during the grueling procession through the
streets of Jerusalem that Jesus gave His last, and very brief, public
message. “There were following Him a great multitude of the people,
and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him,” Luke reports.
Turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping
for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold,
the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren,
and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’
Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and
to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things in the
green tree, what will happen in the dry?” (Luke 23:27–31).
Having children was considered the greatest blessing a
Jewish woman could have, and only a tragedy of awesome dimensions
could cause her to wish otherwise. Jesus’ reference to the green
and dry tree related to a popular proverb that meant if something bad
occurred under good circumstances, it would be much worse under bad.
His point was that if the Romans did such a terrible thing as to
crucify one innocent Jewish man, what could they be expected to do to
the guilty nation of Israel? If they executed a man who had committed
no offense against them, what would they do to a people who rebelled?
The Lord was, of course, referring to a.d. 70, when the
Temple would be utterly destroyed and the majority of its inhabitants
slaughtered by the Roman legions of Titus. From that holocaust the
nation of Israel has not yet fully recovered even in modern times,
because there is still no temple in Jerusalem, no sacrifices, no
priesthood to offer them, and no priestly records to verify lineage.
That was the horror of which Israel should have been fearful, Jesus
said.
Because He was sinless and completely undefiled in
body as well as in mind and spirit, Jesus was physically all that
Adam was before the Fall and more. But Jesus’ severe beatings and
the scourging had made even Him too weak to carry the heavy cross.
Not only was He suffering excruciating physical pain, but He had had
no sleep the previous night and was suffering the added agonies of
betrayal, defection, and denial. In addition to that, He was still
suffering the accumulated pain of having been tempted by and being in
continual spiritual battle with Satan. There were now no angels sent
to minister to Him as they had after the wilderness temptations, and
His body was all but depleted of strength. More even than all of
that, He knew perfectly that He faced the indescribably painful
prospect of taking upon Himself the sin of all mankind, of becoming
sin for their sakes. And for that He would suffer the wrath of His
heavenly Father which that sin deserved.
All of those agonies-physical, emotional, and
spiritual-combined to utterly weaken His perfect but now emaciated
body. Consequently, as they were coming out from the
Praetorium, the soldiers found a man of Cyrene named Simon, whom
they pressed into service to bear His cross.
Cyrene was a Greek settlement located west of
Alexandria on the North African coast of the Mediterranean, directly
south of Greece in what is modern Libya. It was a prosperous trade
center and had a large population of Jews. Simon was a common
Jewish name, and in all probability this man was a pilgrim who had
come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.
Simon was “a passer-by coming from the country”
(Mark 15:21) as Jesus was being taken out of the city. Perhaps
because he looked strong he was conscripted by the Roman soldiers to
carry Jesus’ cross. Mark also identifies Simon as “the father of
Alexander and Rufus” (v. 21), indicating that those two men were
Christians known to Mark and to many other believers at the time he
wrote his gospel. Because Mark probably wrote from Rome, Alexander
and Rufus may have been active in the church there. This Rufus may
have been the man Paul greeted in his letter to Rome, and, if so,
“his mother and mine” would refer to Simon’s wife (see Rom.
16:13).
It may have been the carrying of Jesus’ cross that led
Simon to faith in Him. What began as a forced and probably resented
act of physical servitude became the opportunity for spiritual life.
Not only Simon himself but his entire family came to salvation, and
his wife became like a mother to the apostle Paul.
Because the Mosaic law required that executions be
performed outside the city (Num. 15:35) and also because hanging on a
tree was considered a curse (Deut. 21:23; cf. Gal. 3:13), Jesus was
taken outside Jerusalem to be crucified. And because crucifixion was
a vivid means of showing the populace the price for opposing Rome,
crosses were generally erected beside a well-traveled road, if
possible on a hill, bluff, or other promontory where they would be
visible to all.
The place chosen for Jesus’ crucifixion was a hill on
the outskirts of Jerusalem called Golgotha, which means Place of a
Skull. As an outcast both of Israel and of Rome, Jesus “suffered
outside the gate” (Heb. 13:12).
Luke refers to the hill of crucifixion as “the place
called The Skull” (23:33), and as several gospels explain, Skull
translates a Greek term (kranion) equivalent to the
Hebrew/Aramaic Golgotha (see John 19:17). The name Calvary is
derived from the Latin word (calvaria) for skull, or cranium.
Contrary to what some scholars have suggested, the Place
of a Skull was not a burial ground where skulls were commonly
found. Jews would not allow dead bodies to be exposed, and no part of
a human skeleton was to be seen in Israel. Rather the name referred
to a particular site that had the appearance of a skull. Such a hill,
commonly called Gordon’s Calvary, is the traditional site and can
still be viewed today a short distance from Jerusalem’s northern
wall.
Before the soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross and it was
placed upright in the ground, they gave Him wine to drink mingled
with gall. The word translated gall simply referred to
something bitter, which Mark identifies as myrrh (15:23), a narcotic
that also was used as a perfume (see Ps. 45:8; Prov. 7:17), as an
ingredient of anointing oil for priests (Ex. 30:23), and for
embalming (John 19:39). It was quite expensive and was one of the
gifts presented to the infant Jesus by the magi (Matt. 2:11).
Because crucifixion was designed to inflict maximum
pain, the gall, or myrrh, was not offered as an act of mercy
on the part of the soldiers. It was simply used to stupefy a victim
to keep him from struggling violently as the nails were driven into
his hands and feet.
From extrabiblical sources it is known that wealthy
Jewish women would often provide wine mixed with myrrh to those about
to be executed, especially by crucifixion. Contrary to the soldiers,
their purpose was to ease the pain of “him who is perishing,”
following the admonition of Proverbs 31:6. It may have been that such
a group of women also offered Jesus the stupefying drink.
But Jesus did not want His senses dulled, and after
tasting the mixture, He was unwilling to drink. As He had
already declared in the garden, first in prayer to His heavenly
Father (Matt. 26:39) and then to Peter as He was being arrested (John
18:11), He was determined to drink the cup the Father had given Him.
He would endure the full measure of pain-physical, emotional, and
spiritual.
When they had crucified Him does not refer to the
finished execution but to raising Him upright and placing the
vertical beam into the hole prepared for it. It was at that point
that the actual crucifixion began.
Crucifixion originated in Persia, where a deity named
Ormazd was believed to consider the earth sacred. Because a criminal
who was executed had to be raised above the earth in order not to
defile it, he was suspended on a large pole and left there to die.
The practice was picked up by the Carthaginians and then by the
Greeks and especially the Romans, whose extensive use caused it to
become identified with them. It is estimated that by the time of
Christ the Romans had crucified some 30,000 men in Israel alone,
primarily for insurrection. The crucifixion of only three men outside
Jerusalem was therefore virtually insignificant in the eyes of Rome.
None of the gospel writers describes the procedure for
securing Jesus to the cross. The literal Greek text is even less
revealing than most English renderings, saying simply, “The having
crucified Him ones parted His garments.” It is only from Thomas’s
comments several days after the resurrection that we learn about
Jesus’ being nailed by His hands and feet (John 20:25), rather than
being tied with cords or thongs as was often the case.
Judging from nonbiblical descriptions of crucifixion in
New Testament times, Jesus was placed on the cross as it lay flat on
the ground. First His feet were nailed to the upright beam and then
His arms stretched across the horizontal beam and nailed through the
wrists just above the hand, allowing a slight bend at the knees when
the body was extended. The cross was then picked up and dropped into
the hole, causing excruciating pain as the weight of His body pulled
at the already torn flesh around the nails.
In his book The Life of Christ, Frederick Farrar
describes crucifixion as follows:
A death by crucifixion seems to
include all that pain and death can have of the horrible and
ghastly-dizziness, cramp, thirst, starvation, sleeplessness,
traumatic fever, shame, publicity of shame, long continuance of
torment, horror of anticipation, mortification of intended wounds-all
intensified just up to the point at which they can be endured at all,
but all stopping just short of the point which would give to the
sufferer the relief of unconsciousness.
The unnatural position made
every movement painful; the lacerated veins and crushed tendons
throbbed with incessant anguish; the wounds, inflamed by exposure,
gradually gangrened [when a victim took several days to die]; the
arteries-especially at the head and stomach-became swollen and
oppressed with surcharged blood, and while each variety of misery
went on gradually increasing, there was added to them the intolerable
pang of a burning and raging thirst, and all these physical
complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety, which made
the prospect of death itself-of death, the unknown enemy, at whose
approach man usually shudders most-bear the aspect of a delicious and
exquisite release.
One thing is clear. The first
century executions were not like the modern ones, for they did not
seek a quick, painless death nor the preservation of any measure of
dignity for the criminal. On the contrary, they sought an agonizing
torture which completely humiliated him. And it is important that we
understand this, for it helps us realize the agony of Christ’s
death. (Vol. 2 [New York: E. P. Dutton, 1877], pp. 403–4)
Dr. Truman Davis gives an additional description of
Jesus’ crucifixion:
At this point another phenomenon
occurs. As the arms fatigue, great waves of cramps sweep over the
muscles knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these
cramps comes the inability to push Himself upward. Hanging by His
arms, the pectoral muscles are paralyzed and the intercostal muscles
are unable to act. Air can be drawn into the lungs but cannot be
exhaled. Jesus fights to raise Himself in order to get even one short
breath. Finally, carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the
blood stream and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically He is
able to push Himself upward to exhale and bring in the life-giving
oxygen.…
Hours of this limitless pain,
cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial
asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from His lacerated back
as He moves up and down against the rough timber; then another agony
begins. A deep crushing pain in the chest as the pericardium slowly
fills with serum and begins to compress the heart.
It is now almost over … the
compressed heart is struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood
into the tissues. The tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to
gasp in small gulps of air. (“The Crucifixion of Jesus; The Passion
of Christ from a Medical Point of View,” Arizona Medicine,
vol. 22, Mar. 1965, pp. 183–87)
It was not Matthew’s purpose, however, to focus on the
physical particulars of the crucifixion that led to Christ’s
yielding up His life, but rather on the character of the crucifiers.
Through all of that torment the callous soldiers sat
impassively, as they had done many times before. They had no idea who
Jesus was, except for what was written on the sign above His head as
a sarcastic taunt by Pilate. They doubtlessly were aware that Pilate,
governor of the region and their military commander, had repeatedly
declared Jesus innocent of any crime against Rome. But Jesus was
probably not the first innocent man they had seen executed. They had
no religious concern about Jesus’ identity and no moral concern
about His innocence. Out of their wicked ignorance they, too,
eventually joined in mocking Jesus, saying, “If You are the King of
the Jews, save Yourself!” (Luke 23:36–37).
Jesus had repeatedly told the disciples of His coming
suffering, scorn, and death, and it had been predicted by Isaiah and
other prophets hundreds of years before that. The Messiah would be
“despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted
with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face, He was
despised, and we did not esteem Him” (Isa. 53:3). Not only was He
to suffer unjustly at the hands of wicked men but He endured that
affliction for the very sake of those responsible for it—which, in
the fullest sense, includes every fallen, sinful human being who has
ever lived and who will ever live. “He was pierced through for our
transgressions,” Isaiah goes on to say, “He was crushed for our
iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by
His scourging we are healed.… The Lord has caused the iniquity of
us all to fall on Him” (vv. 5–6).
Christians in the early church are reported to have
begged God’s forgiveness for the unknown sufferings they caused
Jesus, realizing they could not conceive of the full extent of the
pain He endured at men’s hands, a pain to which they knew their own
sins had contributed.
The King James Version of verse 35 contains the
additional words: “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by
the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture
did they cast lots.” The oldest known manuscripts of Matthew,
however, do not include those words, suggesting that some
well-intentioned scribe added to Matthew’s gospel the prediction
from Psalm 22:18 that is quoted in John 19:24.
Jewish men normally wore five pieces of clothing:
sandals, an inner cloak, a headpiece, a belt, and an outer cloak, or
tunic. The four soldiers divided up the first four pieces of
Jesus’ garments among themselves by casting lots.
Because “the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece,” they
decided not to cut it into four pieces but to “cast lots for it, to
decide whose it shall be” (John 19:23–24). Having done that, they
sat down near the cross and began to keep watch over Him there.
The quaternion was required to remain with the victim until his death
was certain, making sure that friends or family members did not
rescue him or seek to reduce his suffering by putting him to death by
a swifter means.
As a final mockery of Jesus and affront to the Jewish
leaders, Pilate had instructed the soldiers (see John 19:19a)
to put up above His head the charge against Him which read, “THIS
IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Matthew recorded an abbreviated
version of the full inscription, which read, “JESUS THE NAZARENE,
THE KING OF THE JEWS,” and was “written in Hebrew, Latin, and in
Greek” (John 19:19b–20). Greek was the most nearly universal
language in the empire at that time, Aramaic (closely related to
Hebrew) was the language of Palestine, and Latin was the official
language of Rome. By those three languages the governor made certain
that virtually every person who passed by could read the inscription.
The chief priests insisted that the wording of the
inscription be changed to “He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’ ”
But Pilate refused to concede to them again, declaring with finality,
“What I have written I have written” (John 19:21–22).
The Knowing Wicked
At that time two robbers were crucified with Him, one
on the right and one on the left. (27:38)
The second group present at the crucifixion was simply
composed of the two robbers, who might be described as the
knowing wicked. Robbers translates lēstēs, which
denotes a brigand who plunders as he steals. These men were not petty
thieves or even common robbers, but cruel bandits who took pleasure
in tormenting, abusing, and often killing their victims. It is
possible they were associates of Barabbas, who had probably been
destined for the middle cross between them before he was released and
Jesus took his place. They were not patriots who plundered the Romans
to help secure the freedom of their country but hardened criminals
whose only loyalty was to themselves. They were as great a threat to
their own countrymen as to the Romans.
In all likelihood the two robbers were Jewish or
at least lived in the Jewish society of Palestine. Consequently, they
would have had some knowledge of Judaism and the Jewish Messiah. They
likely would have known something about Jesus of Nazareth and the
fact that He and His followers claimed He was the predicted Messiah.
Therefore their rejection of Jesus was more serious than that of the
soldiers.
Like the soldiers, they must have known about the
groundless charges of the Jewish religious leaders and the numerous
exonerations by Pilate. Yet they were not content to ignore Jesus but
rather, as Matthew mentions later in his account (v. 44), cast
insults at Him.
The specific, conscious reason for their hatred of Jesus
is not clear. They apparently were not driven by religious concerns,
and Jesus had certainly done them no harm. But their naturally wicked
hearts somehow recognized His life as a righteous judgment on their
sinfulness, and they joined the jeering crowds and the religious
leaders in the mocking.
Like those of many people today, the lives of the two
robbers revolved around material possessions and fleshly
satisfaction. They had as little concern for religion, common
morality, and justice as did the pagan Roman soldiers. Having a
greater love for the things of the world than the things of God, they
used their dying breath to vent their pent-up anger on the only one
who could give them hope.
The Fickle Wicked
And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him,
wagging their heads, and saying, “You who are going to destroy the
temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the
Son of God, come down from the cross.” (27:39–40)
Another group present at the crucifixion might be called
the fickle wicked. Referred to by Matthew simply as those passing
by, this crowd was probably composed largely of Jewish pilgrims
who had come to celebrate the Passover. Because Jerusalem could not
house all the visitors, the majority of them had to camp outside the
city or stay in nearby towns and villages. Consequently, there was
much heavier traffic in and out of Jerusalem than usual.
This particular crowd of passers-by almost certainly
included inhabitants of Judea and Galilee who had previously admired
Christ and perhaps even followed Him for a while. They had heard Him
preach and seen Him perform miracles and expose the malicious
hypocrisy of the scribes, Pharisees, and other religious leaders.
Some of them no doubt had participated in His triumphal entry a few
days earlier and had joined in shouting hosannas to His name. They
had seen Him cleanse the Temple of the money changers and sacrifice
sellers and probably cheered Him for that while listening to His
teaching.
It is also almost certain that these former admirers had
earlier in the day called for Jesus’ crucifixion and had followed
the soldiers and Jesus to the Place of the Skull to witness the
execution they had demanded. These were the fickle wicked who had a
place for Jesus only when He satisfied their wants. They were
fascinated by Him, knew who He claimed to be, and had witnessed
countless demonstrations of power that verified that claim.
But although they were grateful for His miracles and
awed by His preaching, they had no desire for Him to cleanse them of
cherished sins or to give Him control of their lives. They had
expected Him to be their kind of Messiah, a Messiah who would
overthrow Rome and establish Israel as sovereign over the Gentile
world. The fact that He had allowed Himself to be arrested, mocked,
beaten, scourged, and tried before the pagan Pilate while offering no
verbal, much less miraculous, defense was proof enough in their minds
that He was not the Messiah whom they, and most of Israel, wanted and
expected.
As they passed by beneath the cross they were hurling
abuse at Him, wagging their heads. The verb behind hurling
abuse is in the imperfect tense, indicating repeated, continuous
defamation. To emphasize their disdain, they were also wagging
their heads in mockery, and saying, “You who are going to
destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself!”
Just as David had predicted some thousand years earlier, those who
looked on the Messiah sneered at Him, mocked Him, and wagged their
heads, saying, in essence, “Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him
deliver him; let Him rescue him, because He delights in him” (Ps.
22:7–8).
You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild
it in three days referred to the testimony of the false witnesses
during the hearing before Caiaphas. Misusing a statement Jesus had
made almost three years earlier referring to His death and
resurrection (see John 2:19–21), those witnesses accused Him of
claiming power to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple in three days (Matt.
26:61). “If you could really do such a miraculous thing as that,”
His tormentors were saying, “surely You can save yourself
from death now. If You are the Son of God, come down from the
cross.”
While Pilate was listening to the warning sent by his
wife, the chief priests and elders had been inciting the multitude to
demand the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus, perhaps
telling them of His claims to rebuild the Temple and to be the Son of
God (see Matt. 27:19–20). Some of those people were now throwing
the accusations in Jesus’ face as He was suspended on the cross. It
was not enough that He was dying in agony. The wicked, mindless,
heartless, and fickle crowd had changed in a few days from acclaiming
Jesus as the Messiah to condemning Him as a blasphemer.
Many people today are like them. They may have been
raised in the church, heard the truths of the gospel many times, and
know that Jesus Christ claimed to be the Son of God. They may have
been baptized, made a profession of faith, and attended church
regularly for a while. But because Jesus does not fulfill their
worldly, selfish expectations they lose interest in the things of
God. They may be quite willing to have the church attack evils in
society but are quite unwilling to be confronted with their own sin
and need for repentance and forgiveness. In effect, they mock and
sneer at Jesus as they turn their backs on His truth, His
righteousness, and His lordship. The world is full of passers-by who
once praised Jesus but now ridicule Him.
The Religious Wicked
In the same way the chief priests also, along with
the scribes and elders, were mocking Him, and saying, “He saved
others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him now
come down from the cross, and we shall believe in Him. He trusts in
God; let Him deliver Him now, if He takes pleasure in Him; for He
said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ” And the robbers also who had
been crucified with Him were casting the same insult at Him.
(27:41–44)
By far the most wicked of those who harassed Jesus at
the cross were the religious leaders, in particular the chief
priests and the scribes and elders. They were the primary
instigators of the crucifixion, just as Jesus had predicted (Mark
8:31; Matt. 20:18; cf. Mark 14:43). The Pharisees had been Christ’s
earliest and most persistent critics, and they had begun to plot His
death many years before (Matt. 12:14) and were involved in His arrest
(John 18:3). But apparently they played a somewhat secondary role in
His trials and condemnation, not being mentioned again until the day
following the crucifixion, when, with the chief priests, they asked
Pilate to order the tomb sealed (Matt. 27:62–64).
The chief priests and the scribes and elders
represented the entire religious leadership of Israel, including the
reigning and the retired high priests and the Pharisees and
Sadducees, all of whom resolutely opposed Jesus and sought His
destruction. Although its hearings and condemnation of Jesus were
illegal by its own standards as well as by Mosaic law, the supreme
ruling council of Israel, the Sanhedrin, fully approved the ultimate
and irreversible decision to put Jesus to death (26:59; Mark 15:1).
Those men were the religious authorities and the
supposed spiritual leaders of Judaism. Many of them, such as the
scribes, had devoted their lives to the study of God’s Word and the
rabbinical traditions. Because Judaism was rightly seen as the only
true religion, these men were held to be the most revered religious
men not only in Israel but in the world. If any group of people
should have known God’s truth and recognized and received the
Messiah, it was those men. Yet they not only opposed and condemned
Jesus themselves but enticed the people to support them in their
wicked rejection of Him.
Perhaps because they felt above addressing Jesus
directly as He hung like a criminal on the cross, the leaders spoke
to the crowds as they were mocking Him, and saying, “He saved
others; He cannot save Himself.” In saying that Jesus saved
others, those men again acknowledged the reality of His miracles,
which they had never been able to deny. They criticized Him for
healing on the Sabbath (Mark 3:2) and accused Him of receiving His
miraculous power from Satan (Matt. 12:24), but the reality of His
miracle-working power was far too obvious and extensive to repudiate.
But because He attacked their apostasy and they were convinced that
God was on their side, the religious leaders were also convinced that
Jesus was not of God and therefore could not now save Himself.
If He is the King 1
The
horrible act of crucifixion was now underway. Pilate had Jesus
scourged, a most terrible torture in which the prisoner was tied to a
post with His back bent, and a whip with long leather thongs studded
with sharp pieces of bone and pellets of lead was used. The pain was
so severe that men died under it, or broke with loss of their senses.
But Jesus retained His consciousness throughout. When presented to
the people as a broken person He still retained His poise. John tells
us that Jesus carried His own cross, perhaps the crossbar, as they
started out of Jerusalem (John 19:17). But with His condition
weakened from the torture, He stumbled under the load. The Synoptics
tell us that the soldiers took a man from the crowd, a Cyrenian named
Simon who was coming into the city from the country (according to
Mark), and ordered him to carry Jesus’ cross. Luke tells us that
Jesus was composed sufficiently to address the women who were weeping
as they followed Him, “Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves
and for your children…” announcing coming judgment upon Jerusalem
(Luke 23:28–31). It is thought that this Simon became a Christian
and that his two sons, Alexander and Rufus, became well-known
Christians in Rome (Mark 15:21).
The Gospels all relate the Crucifixion with a minimum of
words. None go into the terrible description of a Roman crucifixion.
The major question has to do with “Who is this Jesus?” And “Why
did He have to die?” At Calvary something was happening to God by
man, but something was also happening to man and for man by God. Both
of these aspects need to be recognized for us to think adequately of
the meaning of the Cross. The historic fact is that “Christ died,”
and the theological significance is that “Christ died for our sins”
(1 Cor. 15:3). This is the heart of the kerygma,
of the Good News of the gospel. The death of Jesus, set in the
Passover week, emphasizes the expiatory nature of His sacrifice. The
Hebrew word kaphar means
to cover or wipe away, and when used in relation to God it means to
forgive or purge away, a cleansing from sin (Lev. 16:30). C. H. Dodd
says that Hellenistic Judaism, represented by the Septuagint, did not
regard the cultus as a means of pacifying the displeasure of the
Deity, but as a means of delivering man from sin. The Crucifixion of
Jesus brought the interaction between God and man together, for here
Jesus actualized the depth of God’s love in absorbing man’s
hostility to the death and speaking back the word of grace. He “bore
our sins in His own body on the tree”(1 Pet. 2:24).
The place of Crucifixion was a skull-shaped hill called
Golgotha. The soldiers, according to a custom of mercy, offered
drugged wine to make the person more insensitive to the pain, but
Jesus refused it. Some researchers suggest that the upright post was
stationary and that the person was nailed through the hands to the
crossbar and raised above the ground, somewhat higher than the height
of a man, with the heels crossed and a nail thrust through them.
Other descriptions suggest that the person was crucified by being
nailed to the whole cross, which was then raised and planted.
Jesus was crucified about nine o’clock in the morning
and died six hours later, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the
time of the evening sacrifice. His agony was six hours long on the
Cross and yet short compared to the fact that at times crucified
persons were still alive a second day. Matthew simply mentions the
two thieves crucified with Jesus while Luke includes them in the
story, reporting the faith-conversation of one (23:39–43).
Matthew tells of the soldiers parting His garments by
lot. Each Jewish man wore five articles: shoes, turban, girdle, inner
garment, and outer cloak. The soldiers, according to John 19:23–24,
divided them four ways, casting lots on the Galilean’s peasant
tunic which was without seam. John was near the Cross, and probably
witnessed the scene. Matthew simply reports this as a fulfillment of
the statement in Psalm 22:18. He alone adds that the soldiers sat
down and kept watch over Him to thwart any attempts at interfering
with Him.
The sentence of the crucified one was fixed to the Cross
above his head. The placing of the sign above Jesus’ head suggests
the form of the cross having been in the shape traditionally ascribed
to it. More significant is the statement Pilate wrote designating His
crime: “This is Jesus the King of the Jews.” John’s
account adds the words “of Nazareth” to the identification. He
also writes that the chief priests went to Pilate to ask him to
change the statement to read, “He said that He was the King of the
Jews.” Pilate, evidently fed up with their shenanigans, said, “What
I have written I have written.” The sign was no small placard, for
the statement was written in Latin, in Greek, and in Hebrew, the
languages of the political, the cultural, and the religious worlds of
the day.
The mockery of Jesus expressed the unbelief of the
people not directly involved in the scheme of the leaders. Matthew
says that He was mocked by those passing by. Further, He was mocked
by the Sanhedrin and by the two robbers. Matthew thereby shows the
world’s rejection of the Son of God, the fulfillment of Psalm
22:7–8. Note the intense form of the temptation for Jesus as He
hung listening to their jeers: “if you are the Son of God, come
down.” “Save Yourself.” “He saved others; Himself He cannot
save.” “If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from
the cross, and we will believe Him.” And the climax of it all
was their reference to Jesus’ claim to be “the Son of God.”
The accusations were in the large correct statements, and showed
that they had heard Jesus’ words but missed their truth. Matthew
focuses on the mockery of the King, on the rejection of the Messiah.
In J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, the wild chorus of the
scoffers ends with all eight parts singing in unison, “For he has
said: I am the Son of God.”
Matthew and the other Gospel writers recorded the
historical facts of our Lord’s suffering and death. It remained for
the writers of the New Testament Epistles to explain the theological
meaning of this event. History states that “Christ died,” but
theology explains, “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3).
Let’s consider the various kinds of suffering that our Lord endured
that day.
Mocked by the Soldiers (Matt. 27:27–30)
The official indictment against Jesus was that He
claimed to be the King of the Jews (Matt. 27:37). The soldiers took
advantage of this accusation and paid “homage” to the king. It
was a cruel way to treat an innocent prisoner who had already been
scourged. But Pilate did nothing to restrain them. He was glad to get
the prisoner off of his hands.
First, the soldiers disrobed Jesus and dressed Him in an
old “soldier’s cloak.” Imagine attiring the Prince of Peace
(Isa. 9:6) in a discarded military uniform! Matthew described the
robe as scarlet, while Mark used the word purple. There
is no contradiction; “reddish-purple” would be a good description
of an old faded garment. Imagine how our Lord must have felt when
this robe was thrown on His bleeding body.
A king must have a crown, so they wove together the
thorny twigs of a plant, and pushed it on His head. They gave Him a
reed as a scepter, and then bowed before Him, saying, “Hail, King
of the Jews!” They repeated this mock homage not realizing that the
One they were mocking was indeed King of kings and Lord of lords.
Then they did something that no subject would ever do to
his king: They spat on Him and hit Him with the reed. While some of
the soldiers were bowing before Him, others were hitting Him on the
head or spitting on Him (Isa. 50:6). Jesus took all of this
humiliation and pain without speaking or fighting back (1 Peter
2:18ff). His submission was not a sign of weakness; it was a sign of
strength.
Crucified (Matt. 27:31–38)
Crucifixion was the most shameful and painful way to
execute a criminal. Jesus did not simply die; He died “even the
death of a cross” (Phil. 2:8). Roman citizens ordinarily were not
crucified. In fact, crucifixion was never mentioned in polite
society, so degrading was this form of capital punishment.
Jesus was led outside the city to the place of execution
(Heb. 13:12–13). It was required that the prisoner carry his own
cross (or at least the crossbeam), and that he wear a placard around
his neck announcing his crime. That placard was then hung over his
head on the cross for all to see.
While the record does not state so expressly, it appears
that Jesus was unable to carry the cross, and this was slowing down
the progress of the group. When we remember that He had been awake
all night, scourged, and abused by the soldiers, we can conclude that
He was exhausted. Jesus started out bearing His cross (John 19:17).
Mark 15:22 says, “And they bring Him to Golgotha” (literal
translation). This suggests that the soldiers had to assist Jesus in
the procession, for the word “bring” has the meaning of “to
carry, to bear.”
There was to be no delay in this execution. The Passover
was about to be celebrated, and the Jewish leaders did not want their
holy day desecrated by the dead bodies of criminals (John 19:31). In
order to hasten the procession, the soldiers drafted a visitor to
Jerusalem, Simon from Cyrene. He had come to Jerusalem to celebrate
Passover, and now he was humiliated by being forced to carry the
cross of an unknown criminal! Roman soldiers had the authority to
draft citizens (Matt. 5:41).
Mark referred to Simon as though the people reading his
Gospel would recognize him: “the father of Alexander and Rufus”
(Mark 15:21). Apparently these two sons were well-known members of
the church. It seems likely that this humiliating experience resulted
in Simon’s conversion as well as in the conversion of his family.
Simon came to Jerusalem to sacrifice his Passover lamb, and he met
the Lamb of God who was sacrificed for him.
It was customary to give a narcotic drink to those about
to be crucified, for this would help to ease the pain. Jesus refused
this drink; He did the will of God in complete control of His
faculties. Also this act fulfilled Psalm 69:21.
It was customary for the soldiers to share the loot at
an execution. This was a fulfillment of Psalm 22:18. After they had
finished gambling for His clothing (John 19:23–25), they sat down
and “guarded Him there” (Matt. 27:36). After all, this Jesus was
known to be a miracle-worker. Nobody knew how many followers He had,
and perhaps they were even then preparing to rescue Him. He had one
man in His band of disciples who had been a Zealot (Matt. 10:4—“Simon
the Zealot”), and that fanatical group stopped at nothing when it
came to opposing Roman authority.
By combining the Gospel records, we arrive at the full
accusation that was put over His head: “This is Jesus of Nazareth
the King of the Jews.” The Jewish rulers did not approve of what
Pilate wrote, but for once the governor did not vascillate (John
19:21–22). In one sense, this title proved to be the first “Gospel
tract” ever written. It announced to one of the thieves crucified
with Him that He was the Saviour and a King. He dared to believe this
message and asked Jesus to save him!
Mocked by Jews (Matt. 27:39–44)
Jesus was not executed in a quiet building, away from
the city’s noise and activity. He was executed on a public highway,
on a day when perhaps hundreds of people were traveling. The fact
that His indictment was written in three languages—Greek, Hebrew,
and Latin—indicates that a cosmopolitan crowd passed by Golgotha,
“the place of the skull.” This in itself was humiliating, for the
passersby could stare and shout bitter mockery at the victims. Again,
this mockery from the crowd had been predicted (Ps. 22:6–8).
It was bad enough that the common rabble mocked Him, but
even the Jewish leaders joined the attack. They reminded Him of His
promise to rebuild the temple in three days (Matt. 26:61; John 2:19).
“If You can do that, You can come down from the cross and prove to
us that You are God’s Son!” In reality, it was the fact that He
stayed on the cross that proved His divine sonship.
The Jewish rulers mocked His claim to be the Saviour.
“He saved others; He cannot save Himself” (Matt. 27:42,nasb). He
had saved others. But if He saved Himself, then nobody else
could be saved! He did not come to save His life, but to give it as a
ransom for sinners.
Rejected by the Father (Matt. 27:45–56)3
27 Then
the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and
gathered the whole garrison around Him. 28 And they
stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him.
Jesus
is Lead to Golgotha
Mark
15:18–22; Luke 23:26–33; John 19:17
29 When
they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head,
and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and
mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 Then
they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head.
31 And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe
off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be
crucified.
32 Now
as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they
compelled to bear His cross. 33 And when they had
come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull,
34 they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to
drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink.
Jesus
is Crucified
Mark
15:23–32; Luke 23:33–43; John 19:18–24
35 Then
they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet:
“They divided My garments among
them,
And
for My clothing they cast lots.”
36 Sitting
down, they kept watch over Him there. 37 And they put
up over His head the accusation written against Him:
THIS
IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS
38 Then
two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on
the left.
39 And
those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads 40 and
saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three
days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the
cross.”
41 Likewise
the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said,
42 “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He
is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we
will believe Him. 43 He trusted in God; let Him
deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of
God.’ ”
44 Even
the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same
thing.
126
THE CRUCIFIXION
Matthew 27:27–44
Saint Andrew’s Chapel, the church
where I serve as minister of preaching and teaching, holds a service
each year on Good Friday. In my sermons on those occasions, I
consider aspects of the narrative of the crucifixion and death of
Jesus. Yet even if I had a lifetime of Good Fridays on which to
consider these matters, I could not even begin to scratch the surface
of the significance of these events. In this chapter, I will consider
the events that surrounded the crucifixion of Jesus, as recorded by
Matthew. In the next chapter, we will look at the episode of Jesus’
death.
The Gospel writers give very little interpretation of
the meaning of the crucifixion, focusing instead on recording what
actually happened. The interpretation is found in the Epistles. The
Apostle Paul, for example, says, “I determined not to know anything
among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). This
is apostolic hyperbole, to be sure, but the Apostle is communicating
to his readers how vastly important the death of Christ was in terms
of defining His person and work. The ministry of Mohammed is
symbolized everywhere by the scimitar, the sword. The universal
symbol of Christianity is the cross, because it was while He hung on
that Roman tool for execution that our Savior paid the price for our
sin.
Matthew begins by telling us, Then the soldiers of
the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole
garrison around Him (v. 27). Matthew already has showed us how
the priests and elders abused and mocked Jesus after they had
condemned Him (26:67–68). Once Pilate had ordered that Jesus be put
to death, He received similar treatment from the Roman soldiers who
were tasked with crucifying Him. There were probably between two
hundred and six hundred soldiers gathered around Jesus at this point.
First, Matthew says, they stripped Him and put a
scarlet robe on Him (v. 28). In an act of extreme humiliation,
they removed His own clothes and redressed Him in a red or scarlet
robe. This garment was meant to be mockingly symbolic of royalty. He
then adds: When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on
His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee
before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
(v. 29). They gave Him a mock crown, one made of thorns that would
have been very painful, and a reed to symbolize a scepter. They
pretended to bow before Him, and they hailed Him as the King of the
Jews, the title Pilate had heard used to describe Him (27:11). I
imagine they were rolling on the ground in laughter at this skit they
had invented. But the One they mocked as a king was the King. They
were doing this to the Son of God, to God incarnate, the King
eternal, the One who would sit at the right hand of God with
authority over every one of those soldiers.
After this mockery, their treatment of Jesus turned more
savage. Matthew writes, Then they spat on Him, and took the reed
and struck Him on the head (v. 30). In these actions, they were
insulting and abusing Him. Finally, however, they tired of their fun:
And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His
own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified (v. 31). It
was time to get on with the job.
To the Place of a Skull
Matthew goes on to say: Now as they came out, they
found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear His
cross (v. 32). It was customary for prisoners who were being led
to the place of crucifixion to be forced to bear the crosses on which
they would die, or at least the horizontal beams. Therefore, the fact
that the soldiers compelled a man named Simon, a native of Cyrene (an
area in North Africa with a significant population of Jews), to bear
the cross for Jesus suggests that He was too weak to manage this
task. Jesus already had been scourged and may have lost much blood
because of it.
Mark adds an interesting detail to this episode. He
writes, “Then they compelled a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, the
father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of the country
and passing by, to bear His cross” (15:21). Mark mentions that
Simon had two sons, Alexander and Rufus, and he writes as if the
readers of his Gospel were familiar with them. That suggests that
Simon later came to faith in Jesus and raised his sons in the church.
If so, it is interesting to reflect on how God’s providence
interrupted whatever errand Simon was running that day and caused his
path to cross that of Jesus as He walked to Golgotha. We can only
wonder what part Simon’s role as the bearer of Jesus’ cross
played in his eternal destiny.
Then Matthew tells us: And when they had come to a
place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull, they gave
Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it,
He would not drink (vv. 33–34). There are various theories as
to why the Place of a Skull was so named. Some believe it was a rocky
outcropping that resembled a skull. Others have posited it was
because there were tombs in the area. Perhaps the likeliest
explanation is simply that it was the place where people were put to
death.
When Jesus arrived there, the soldiers gave Him “sour
wine mingled with gall.” Gall was a reference to bitter herbs.
While some commentators believe this mixture was intended as a kind
of anesthetic to help the prisoner endure the initial pain of
crucifixion, it is possible this was simply another humiliation.
Jesus would have been thirsty, but the gall would have made the wine
undrinkable; it would have had a “galling” taste. In any case,
Jesus refused to drink it.
Next, with eloquent simplicity, Matthew writes, Then
they crucified Him (v. 35a). Nails were driven through His hands
or wrists and into the wood of the crossbeam. More nails pierced His
feet. When the cross was stood vertically, the weight of His body
tugged on His impaled hands. When He involuntarily tried to ease that
pain, He put pressure on His feet. This method of execution was
exceedingly painful.
Moreover, it was terribly humiliating. Matthew tells us
that the soldiers divided His garments, casting lots, that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet: “They divided
My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots” (v.
35b). The soldiers already had stripped Jesus temporarily when they
had their fun with Him back in the Praetorium (v. 27), but when they
reached Golgotha, they stripped Him again. Criminals were executed
naked. Classical paintings of the crucifixion always seem to show
Jesus in a loincloth, but He almost certainly had no clothing on as
He hung on the cross. That was intentional; the Romans wanted the
prisoner to feel humiliated and disgraced.
I once talked with the late Charles Colson about his
first day in prison. He told me that the first thing prisoners must
go through is a strip search, after which they are given their prison
clothing. One of the most difficult aspects of this portion of the
process is receiving undergarments that have been worn by other
prisoners. Colson explained to me that this is done not for economic
reasons but to break the spirits of the men coming into the prison.
It is a way of shaming them, of embarrassing them. This same sort of
thing was done to Jesus.
Matthew is astute enough to recognize that even this act
of humiliation was foretold in an Old Testament prophecy. He tells us
that the soldiers did not simply discard Jesus’ garments. It was
one of their prerogatives to take what they wanted from among a
prisoner’s possessions. In this case, they cast lots to determine
who should get which articles of Jesus’ clothing. This had been
prophesied in Psalm 22:18.
Matthew adds, Sitting down, they kept watch over Him
there (v. 36). Having crucified Him, the soldiers’ primary task
was to stand guard until He died. But they did have at least one
other task to perform: And they put up over His head the
accusation written against Him: THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS
(v. 37). It was customary to place a placard on the cross over the
head of the condemned man stating the crime for which he was dying.
This was for the benefit of passers-by, so they might know what was
going on and be warned against committing a similar crime. John tells
us that Pilate himself wrote this inscription, and it bothered the
priests and elders, who asked him to change it to say “He said,
‘I am the King of the Jews,’ ” but Pilate refused
(19:19–21, emphasis added). Matthew also notes, Then two robbers
were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on the left
(v. 38). Two robbers were executed at the same time. Oddly, Matthew,
who is usually so attuned to prophetic fulfillments, says nothing
about this aspect of Jesus’ crucifixion, but Mark notes that this
too fulfilled a prophecy, Isaiah 53:12 (see Mark 15:28).
A Storm of Mockery
Matthew then returns to his account of the mockery Jesus
endured, which seems to have made a deep impression on him. Jesus was
given no respite from it even as He hung before the world in the
shame of nakedness. First, He had to endure the taunts of passers-by:
And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and
saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days,
save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross”
(vv. 39–40). Those whose daily business took them past Golgotha
were not content to gawk. They could not resist the opportunity of
blaspheming Jesus, bringing up the old slander about His comment
regarding the destruction of the temple and challenging Him to prove
He was the Son of God by coming down from the cross. Essentially they
were asking Him to do the same thing Satan challenged Him to do, to
which Jesus replied, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt
the Lord your God’ ” (4:7). Just as Jesus refused to submit
to Satan’s temptation, He rejected the taunting suggestions of the
gawkers at Golgotha.
Second, the priests, scribes, and elders could not stop
gloating over Him: Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with
the scribes and elders, said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot
save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the
cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver
Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God’ ”
(vv. 41–43). They insinuated that Jesus did not have the power He
had claimed to have, and like the passers-by, they challenged Him to
come down from the cross, promising to believe in Him if He would. I
do not know how many times I have heard people talk like these men,
saying, “If only God would do such and such, I would believe in
Him.” If you are reading this book and you are not a believer in
Jesus Christ, what more does God have to do before you will bow
before Him? God has thoroughly verified the identity of His Son. He
has done all He needs to do, but many people choose to mock and
blaspheme just as these religious leaders did.
Third, Matthew reports, the robbers who were
crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing (v. 44).
Though they themselves were dying, they joined in the mockery.
Thankfully, we know that one of the two changed his tune and
expressed belief in Jesus before his death (Luke 23:39–43).
This passage is a record of ceaseless torment and pain
of various kinds—mockery, abuse, embarrassment, terrible physical
pain, taunting, and gloating. This was a terrible ordeal for
Jesus—but much worse was yet to come.4
27:27–32. A Roman cohort (v. 27) had 600
soldiers when full, which was unlikely inasmuch as the Holy Land was
more or less at peace during this time. Nevertheless, there would
have been a large gathering of men who mocked Jesus. The color
scarlet (v. 28; “purple” in Mk 15:20, 17; Jn 19:2, 5)
could be a sign of wealth, though the same word was used for the
color of a soldier’s tunic (the likely meaning of robe). The
crown of thorns may have been a parody of the images of the
emperors who were often depicted in art and on coins with rays of
light emanating from their heads. Reed was often used for the
material to make the shaft of an arrow or a stake for supporting
vines. Following this abuse, they led Him away to crucify Him
(v. 31). In a typical crucifixion, the execution squad consisted of
four soldiers. They marched the condemned to the site, forcing him to
carry the crosspiece (patibulum) to which he would be nailed.
The scourging left Jesus so weakened that a man of Cyrene, a
city in northeastern Africa, named Simon (v. 32) was drafted
to help him carry the crosspiece.
M. The Crucifixion of Jesus (27:33–37)
27:33–37. Golgotha (v. 33) means “skull,”
and “Calvary” comes from the Latin word calvaria, also
meaning “skull.” Both the reason for its name and its location
are uncertain, but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre commemorates the
most likely place. Golgotha was outside the northern wall,
probably alongside a busy road (Mt 27:39) near the city (Jn 19:20).
Wine mixed with gall (v. 34) was offered to Jesus before the
crucifixion by the soldiers, as Jesus’ friends were not close by
(27:55). Mark uses the word “myrrh” to describe the ingredient
(Mk 15:23), and Matthew uses gall to describe the taste and
provide a link with Ps 69:21. The blood loss from scourging resulted
in severe dehydration not unlike profuse perspiration, and intense
thirst was the result. Offering the wine appeared on the
surface as an act of kindness, but He was mercilessly taunted since
it was undrinkable. In addition, on the basis of the use of the same
word (LXX chole) in Ps 68:22 [English 69:21] and Jr 8:14, this
drink may have been poisonous. The soldiers’ duty required them to
remain at the site until those crucified had expired, and that could
take days. It is possible that they offered Jesus this poisoned wine
to hasten His death. Casting lots for the clothing of the condemned
(v. 35) was customary, providing partial compensation for the
soldiers due to the repulsiveness and length of their assignment (cf.
also Ps 22:18). They began to keep watch over Him there (v.
36) because part of their duty was to ward off any rescue attempts by
the associates of the crucified and to verify when death occurred.
The inscription (v. 37) reflected the charge levied against Jesus by
the Jewish leaders.
N. The Cruelty Against Jesus (27:38–44)5
*******************
3
Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The
Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, pp.
101–103). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
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