4318 John+Session+18

well i want to welcome you to our exploration of the gospel of john and whenever we enter the word of god we always want to do it with prayer so let's borrow hearts for a word of prayer right now heavenly father we thank you for your word we thank you for your spirit and we invite you father to just come into this study and guide us open our hearts and lives to the truths that you have here for us we pray father that you would just help us to more fully understand the extremes that you've gone to on our behalf as we commit this hour and ourselves into your hands in the name of yeshua our savior indeed amen okay well we are in the 18th session of 20 this is on chapter 19 if you will and of course it'll deal with the crucifixion of christ and now last time we met we went through chapter 18 we reviewed superficially the six trials that he was exposed to three jewish and three roman and uh we discovered that he was actually declared numerous times by pilot as being innocent so as the legal advocate there he should have released him at that time but he was in effect frightened by the threats of an insurrection and he discovered he was a galilean so he sent him to herod we didn't cover that last time that was in luke and we just summarized that as went by but when pilate discovered he was from galilee he thought that he could hand this all off to herod but herod was more slippery than that and so uh but we're going to explore now tonight in chapter 19 the most significant event in the history of the universe and you can't it's no less than that it very much is very very much is that so christ is now before pilate and the first 15 verses are going to focus on that and he dis again he will declare jesus innocent by by but he's going to be coming very very uptight very nervous over this whole issue and the power in the hands of a small man is always dangerous so verse 1 of chapter 19 then pilate therefore took jesus and scourged him and i assume his motive was to try to engage the sympathy of the crowd scourged by the way without cause was illegal it was illegal under a roman law this was an ill because he it was before sentencing and so he had intended to chastise and then release him probably preying on the the sympathy of the crowd now this question of scourging it may be far more serious than you and i have been taught because this idea of a limit of 39 lashes was a hebrew limit the romans did not have such a limit and they often used rods and what have you and to give you just a hint at the severity you know that he couldn't bear the cross and luke covers that where's cyrus signing he was recruited to take the cross for him because he couldn't handle it but the main point is we discover especially from the descriptions of this in the old testament that he was tortured beyond human recognition in the last verse of isaiah 52 puts it just that way even the king james is translated softly to the the actual phrasing is literally that that he could not be recognized as a son of a man but the soldiers then planted a crown of thorns and put it on his head and put on a purple robe and said hail king of the jews and they of course are doing this in mockery if you will and they smote them with their hands hail king of the jews now the crown of thorns why the crown of thorns well that's actually an echo if you will from genesis chapter three when as a result of adam's sin the thorns were a symbol of the curse that god pronounces and how appropriate it is for the last adam to be burying those thorns on his brow as in a sense closing that metaphor from genesis chapter 3. and even the the very image of god that attracted moses their midian was that thorn bush on fire but not being consumed and that's an interesting uh metaphor or idiom if you will for god himself and uh burning but not it's a model of his mercy if you will so as you study your bible the more you know about your bible the more these little subtleties in genesis will leap out at you as uh anticipatory echoes of the climax that occurs later many people would regard this as satan's hour in the sense that this is when the the seed of the serpent is bruising the the seed of the woman but he is going to crush his head of course when he says hail kings of the goose that that is actually the greeting they use for caesar of course they are mocking when they do that pilate therefore went forth again and saith unto them behold i bring him forth to you that ye may know that i find no fault in him what astonishing statement because he is the judge and he should at that point at that point released him but the jewish leadership threatened that they would report to caesar that he's no friend of caesar's and that that has him terrified he went forth again now you need to understand that the the jews refused to enter the praetorium because that was gentile and they couldn't so he's meeting them at the boundary so he will go within that he'll talk to jesus but then outside he'll address the crowd and so he went forth again in other words he's stepping outside into the public light and but again he pronounces him innocent and the charges should have been dismissed in isaiah it predicted that that he for no find no fault in him judas declared him innocent in matthew 27. i've in the i have betrayed innocent blood he declares pilate here says i found no fault in him he says that again and again herod said he said to herod by power under the same conditions pilate's wife had dreams and was warning him to to let go of this whole thing even the dying thief on the cross we'll discover announced his innocence and the roman centurion of course does at the end too truly this man was the son of god he declares well jesus came forth wearing the crown of thorns and the purple road robe and pilate said unto him to them behold the man i'm assuming that he was hoping that that would enlist their sympathy and and he could play on that and uh antonio cesari's uh painting is famous for this echo homo he did it in 1871 and it's a really i think it's an excellent piece of art it really captures the flavor of the moment eche homo behold the man when the chief priest therefore and officers saw him they cried out saying crucify him crucify him pilate saith him take he him and crucify him for i find no fault in him in other words he just hands them over to his enemies it's the leadership there that cried out crucified and apparently it bribed the mob too to get a mob uprising flavor here and the crucifier it's imperative with no stated object this is like fans in a stadium following cheerleaders it's just a mob reaction here again again he proclaims him innocent and the jewish charge of king is not taken seriously you know and so the jews answered and said we have a law and by our law he ought to die because he made himself the son of god you know i'm fascinated by this statement because you have many people say well jesus never said he was god anyway it says that hasn't read the bible not only to declare that but that's the accusation they put against him to kill him that he made himself the son of god indeed blasphemy was the real reason and that's of course in the torah as such so pilate was given actually three warnings the good witness of christ himself as paul points out in his first letter to timothy the dream of his wife which was called his attention by his wife and the real motive of the sanhedrin was revealed he knew he was set up for envy when pilate therefore heard that saying he was the more afraid why would he be more afraid see to a pagan leader the god-man possibility required investigation greek and roman mythology was filled with accounts of god's living among men so within his own belief structure that was something that obviously disturbed him and he went again into the judgment hall and saying jesus when's art thou but where did you really come from he's concerned but jesus gave him no answer why did he give him no answer because he hadn't taken advantage of the truth he'd already been given there's a principle there that jesus announces even to his disciples whence art thou who are you where are you from really and of course fear is here and this is the sixth of his seven questions then saith paul on them speakest thou not unto me notice thou not that i have the power to crucify thee and have power to release me jesus explained it to him a little more clearly jesus answered thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin wow see and so this is this last official testimony before being crucified and of course it was predetermined as is pointed out all through the book of acts in a number of places see god's counsels do not relieve the guilt of the men who execute them so judas is held accountable for what he did even though it had been predicted and so on it's interesting to me as i watch this administrator struggle with his predicament pilate seeks every means he could think of to release jesus but he had to choose between christ and the world and he had sought to release him but couldn't find a mechanic that would work for him jesus trial before pilate took place in seven stages he was outside at first then inside then again outside then inside then outside and inside and finally outside again in this chapter it's interesting to me that he's he's really struggling with this and from henceforth pilate sought to release him it says in verse 12 but the jews cried out saying if thou let this man go thou art not caesar's friend whosoever make himself a king speaketh against caesar that's a very clever strategy on the part of the jewish leadership not caesar's friend that's an appellation that pilate could not afford to have said against him in rome thou art not caesar's friend that to a to a a roman leader uh that was the kiss of death he should have a totally unclouded allegiance to caesar if he's going to get anywhere and for them to try to pro to make that accusation terrified pilate so he had to choose between the world and christ don't we all now um when pilate ever heard that saying he brought jesus forth and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called in the pavement but in hebrew the gabatha and this is the only other mention of the hebrew equivalent uh was in a has a surrender in abject apostasy in second king 16 it's the only place these things are mentioned and it was the preparation of the passover and about the sixth hour and he says to the jews behold your king i think this is rather fascinating is that the personal representative of the rule of the world is presenting jesus to the crowd as their king and there's an element of mockery here perhaps but at the same time a very interesting statement and uh it was the preparation of the passover now we've got to be careful with this because it's very confusing the term passover is used connotatively of the whole holiday period of the of the spring because you've got passover a piece of unleavened bread and feeds the first fruits these three feasts are collected under the the overall label of passover used connotatively what is actually the preparation day for the pa the main sabbath that's the next day is the feast of unleavened bread the feast of passover is denotatively is always the 14th of nisan and the next day the 15th of the sun is the feast of unleavened bread and that's a high day and it's celebrated actually for seven days and but anyway it was the preparation of the of for that feast about the sixth hour he saith unto jews behold your king and so uh i find it fascinating to see pilate declaring christ's kingship to the to the to the mob and it continues in mark by the way the reference is a little clearer and now when even was come because it was the preparation that is the day before the sabbath now it says sabbath there it's not talking about saturday it's talking about the saboteur the high sabbath in addition to the 52 saturdays in a year you also had seven additional high sabbaths and the feast of unleavened bread was one of those and so when we think of sabbath most of us as gentiles say well you must mean saturday no not necessarily there are 52 saturdays in a year but there's also seven additional high sabbath sabbatons and so that's what they're getting ready for and uh so the it's clear that the crucifixion could not have occurred on a friday that's a church tradition that started very early in in a atmosphere of anti-semitism we know that jesus himself in matthew 12 verse 40 said just as jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale so shall the son of man spend three days and three nights in the belly of the earth well you don't get three days and three nights from friday to sunday no matter how you try to twist things people have tried to rationalize that you can't do it furthermore matthew 28 verse 1 has a mistranslation in it it's act the word sabbath there is in the plural in the greek and the only place i've seen that caught because i called it to their attention frankly was the international standard version bible because they too had missed it until they looked more carefully the word sabbath is plural in matthew 28 when the sabbaths were passed plural that's profoundly important but also in john chapter 12 you may recall that jesus made a trip from jericho um six days before the sabbath which means that could not have been on a sabbath day so uh six days before the passover i should say so anyway moving on verse 15 but they cried out away with him away with him crucify him pilate said to them shall i crucify your king and the chief priest answered we have no king but caesar wow that's probably the only time in their existence that they exceeded that because they hated caesar they hated the roman rule i'm sure it came as a surprise to pilot's ears to have that leadership the chief priests say we have no king but caesar it's obviously a politically correct term that's very distant from where their hearts are of course but this is probably the only time in their lives they they resented rome so this is the official denial of the king of the jews then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified and they took jesus and led him away as a lamb to the slaughter literally that's what's described by isaiah and that's exactly he is the lamb i was very fascinated this weekend i was talking to a chinese translator and the symbol in chinese for righteousness is a term that has judgment and over it is a lamb and that's interesting because they don't venerate lambs particularly but that idiom is one of the many of ancient chinese that makes no sense unless you know genesis chapter 3. it's it's a there's a whole study there you can look into and so they delivered them therefore and the word there is to be given over to the side if you will delivered yielded him is another way we might say it and this is where in the in the matthew it points out a pilot ceremonially washes his hands of the whole deal and so see from the standpoint of satan this was both a triumph and also a defeat it was trying for satan to bruise the heel of the woman's seed as had been foretold in genesis 3 15 when god declares war on satan upon enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed and it shall bruise thy head now shall it crush your head and it'll bruise his heel in other words satan was the bruised the heel of the seed of the womb which the seed of the woman is a title of the messiah the seed of satan is a lesser known but a very valid title of the antichrist there was a seed of a woman and that's before us here in this this chapter the seat of satan is going to emerge in our near history it was a defeat though on the other hand because the head of satan is yet to be crushed and will because hebrews 2 14 makes that clear that that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the devil is there any confusion about that paul straightens it out straightens it out in second chapter of hebrews so let's stand back a little bit and take a look at the order of events here john 19 will show him carrying his cross then the simon from cyrene is substituted because he stumbles with it then he's offered a stupefying drink which the first time he denies he refuses it he's then nailed between two thieves and we'll look at that here shortly he says father forgive them for they know not what they do and that gives rise to those that really want to study the city of refuge model in the torah some interesting lessons come out of that the jews then mocked jesus if he was the son of god let him bring let him come down from there and so forth and one of the other thieves rails at him but the other thief receives salvation because he acknowledges his innocence i mean the innocence of christ and he then he gets the promise from christ today thou shalt be with me in paradise that's all covered in luke rather than john but it's all there and one of the things i think i've advocated you do as we go especially as we go through these chapters in john is this parallel the chapters with the chapters in matthew mark and luke because each of them have a slightly different perspective they don't contradict each other but they clearly have a different emphasis and one way you get the whole picture is to read the parallel accounts but we're going to encounter him saying hey behold thy son where he he uh uh announces that to mary and then uh assigns the custody of his mother to john the apostle a surprising move because he had four brothers but he assigns her care to the apostle john which he and from that day on john takes her under wing and she retires with him to to ultimately to ephesus then comes the darkness that could be felt and then jesus claims that my god my god why hast thou forsaken me deliberately quoting the opening line of psalm 22 and the other thing that you were supposed to do in preparation for this hour was to read psalm 22 and one of the discoveries you'll make it reads as if it was dictated first person singular while he hung on the cross it opens and closes with his opening and closing statements sabachthani the my god my god why hast thou forsaken me opens it at the very end there's the equivalent statement of saying it is finished then he finally does declare he's thirsty he's dehydrated and he makes that claim and we'll look at that here in a minute and he finally declares a very in a one-word thing in the greek the way it's recorded it is finished is the way it's translated in john 19 30. but an equivalent translation is paid in full when you pla prayed your bill to a merchant and it was built he would write across it to telesty paid in full and that's what jesus declares as his final that his work is finished and so we'll take a look at all of that as we go because his father into thy hands i commit my spirit he gave his life they didn't take it from him he gave it and so he dismisses his spirit as we'll see in 1930 so let's just pick up the narrative that's the order and he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull which is called in the hebrew golgotha that confuses a lot of people because it depends what language you're looking at here in hebrew it's golgotha and it's the location that we encounter in the akidah in genesis 22 when abraham offers isaac as god had told him to and abram knew he was acting out prophecy in advance because he names the place in the mount of the lord it shall be seen and of course at the very last minute there's a substitution of iran but it's interesting to understand that abraham knew that if he offered isaac at that offering that isaac would be returned to him because god had promised that isaac would have children and so from abraham's point of view if you want me to offer him god you've got a problem i don't have you'll have to raise him from the dead that's his mindset and that's not contrived that's exactly what paul tells us in hebrews chapter 11 verse 19. so we need to understand as we read chapter 22 that there is a an acting out of prophecy because on that very spot 2000 years later another father would offer his son as a lamb and so now in the greek that place is called ukrainian or latin the calvaria those are words for the skull if you will and so the it's outside the gate according to hebrews 13 12 it's without the camp as required in the torah in leviticus 16. and if you're there today you can you stand across it's actually the side of a bus station so it's noisy and strange but up on that wall you can be even with all the erosion over these years you can still see if you look closely how the the uh the the place had a similarity to a skull and picked up that name and i might also let me go back to that picture if i may you'll notice up on top of the ridge there's this it's also a cemetery and so that's going to be important for us to understand here in a minute okay so if you look at the topology of that area um you realize that mount moriah is a ridge system it follows that brown line roughly at the lower end it's about 600 meters above sea level the city of david but it climbs the bedrock climbs higher until you get to the temple mount area at about 741 meters you're still not at the peak by the way most people don't realize that if you keep following you finally get up to 777 meters above sea level the peak which is north of the city so it's a gradual rise if you will and so that's the ridge called mount moriah now there's a tropium valley between it and mount zion to the west and mount zion becomes connotative of the whole area of course in other passages but there's also another valley called the kidron valley uh to the uh to the uh east of uh mount mariah and the the rise beyond that is called the mount of olives and so we have that that topology there now abraham took uh isaac not just to the saddle point that david will later buy for the temple but all the way to the top and our view and so there's a southern valley also called the hinnom valley which is a city dump and constantly burning it gives rise to the term gehenna if you will as an idiom or a metaphor of the end the lake that burns with fire fire and brimstone at the end so salem is at the base of this rise the thrashing floor of aruna is something that david later purchases that becomes the site of the temple but that's not at the peak the peak is at the very very top where we encountered the the events of genesis 22 and uh that's something you want to read to concentrate all of this blowing this up and looking a little more and a little more clearly we have the thrashing floor of aruna at 742 meters above sea level we have golgitha at 777 slightly higher that's the peak and so that's the picture it's interesting that all the burnt offerings and the sin offerings were to be on the north side according to leviticus 1 and leviticus 6. that's exactly where this is taking place and so it's a clean place meaning it had to be somehow isolated from other burials and i'll come back to that it had to be on the north side the burnt offerings were there and the sin offering was there and the it had to be outside the camp according to leviticus 4 and other passages and without the gate outside the gate which hebrews 13 so identifies it let's continue verse 18 where they crucified him and to other with him on either side one and jesus in the midst okay they crucified him it's astonishing to discover how thoroughly that is described in the old testament as you read psalm 22 as i say it is so precise a description of the crucifixion that the american medical association has articles in it that determine the cause of death from those details and we'll take a look at that here in a minute it's also described in isaiah 53 as elegantly as putting all of paul's epistles put together and now the crucifixion itself is complicated there are vector tension suffocation it's relieved by the legs it actually is a very intended to be a very slow death sometimes lasting up to nine days of torture before the person would finally die that's where the term excruciating comes from we use that term excruciating in the language from the cross crux excruciating it comes from that very that very term and so he's stripped of his clothing he's placed on a cross his nails are driven into his hands and his feet he suffers dehydration and an intense thirst as we'll see and the actual death finally occurs by suffocation and the breaking of the heart the excruciating is from the latin crux if you will from the cross itself something you may not understand unless you've had some geometry there's a tension multiplier effect as you if you nail them on that cross to the extent the hands are not spread there's less there's less strain if you as you spread those it increases it's a way of increasing the leverage on the wrists if you will if you look at a vector diagram as that angle gets smaller the tension is is increased it's a extreme way of increasing the pain as he hangs there the american medical association has had a number of articles on this subject due to the pain endured by the weight of the body hanging from the nails which dammed the medial nerves and tear at the tarsals the respiratory torture the cramping the pleural effusions concluded that death by crucifixion was in every sense of the word excruciating literally out of the cross and that's from the march 21 1986 rendering in the american medical journal taken primarily from psalm 22 interestingly enough well then we have another thing that comes in verse 19. i find this rather fascinating pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross and the writing was jesus of nazareth the king of the jews okay now it's interesting that this is a title an official title or notice that's put on here the pilot had it on there as an official label this title then read many of the jews for the place where jesus was crucified was nigh to the city literally by the way it's on the hill right off across from damascus gate and it was written in three languages it was written in hebrew and greek and latin it was written in hebrew because of the hebrew event of course it's greek because that was the universal commercial language of the world at that time and was written in latin because that was the official legal language of the roman empire so all three languages are there and so this is apparently what pilate wrote and in the hebrew now remember he all languages go towards jerusalem city nations that are east of jerusalem go from right to left whether it's hebrew aramaic sanskrit arabic what have you nations that are west of jerusalem go from left to right not only latin and english but obviously greek and cyrillic and so forth now it's interesting so this goes from right to left what does it say yeshua hanatsarai the malek yehudam now it's interesting that in english then it's jesus the nazarene the king of the jews you're with me so far there's something going on here that you miss unless you dig in behind it a little bit in the next verse the chief priests of the jews said to pilate write not the king of the jews but that he said i am the king of the jews you're saying what what's the difference i'll show you the difference in a minute but i love pilot's answer what i have written i have written so if there's a subtlety here it's deliberate let's find out what that subtlety is and the word by the way it's emphatic he said in other words pilate refused to change the inscription he what he did here he did very deliberately let's figure out what he's done you see his messianic proclamation has been officially acknowledged by the personal representative of the ruler of the world let's not lose the impact here and this isn't casual it's not in it's not mocking he this is what pilate put there okay what did he put well if you look at what he wrote there it turns you have to understand that hebrews are very much into alliteration an acronym an acronym psalm 119 the longest psalm in the bible is an organized where every stanza there starts with a different there's 22 of them 22 hebrew letters each one star every everyone starts with the first the aleph and the next group starts with the best and so forth they're into acronyms all the way through this happens to be a deliberate acronym on yod hey vavhay if he had written it the way they asked it it would not have spelled out the name of god and the way he's done it here you see because the yod hey hey is the is an acronym on jehovah or yahweh however you want to deal with that and uh they recognize that right away don't say it that way they wanted it slightly changed so it wouldn't be an acronym on the name of god and pilate says what i have written i have written i don't know i always visualize yule brenner saying that if you remember how he does the ten commandments said anyway it's interesting we're going to discover that when they take the body down and put it in the tomb the the chief priests go to pilot and ask for a special guard so that the thing can't be stolen and i love the way pilate says make it as sure as you can i'm thoroughly convinced that when pilate later hears of the empty tomb he's not surprised i think by then he's beginning to realize that he had more on his hands than he could possibly have dreamt of so now there are people that challenge my rendering here because i've done this this has been in some of our materials and i've had some people in their blogs and stuff react to this well i've had the head of the international standard version foundation dr william welty give me this to quote he gave me permission to say this if one were translating from latin or greek to hebrew which the soldier making the sign would need to be doing there's a high likelihood that he would translate the greek definite article as the hebrew letter vav or add a connective that isn't in the latin intending that that context to make the larger phrase translated in the hebrew aramaic as jesus nazareth that is king of the jews if the sign said this in hebrew or aramaic it would generate precisely the objections noted by the pharisees to amend the sign to read he said that he was the king of the jews so what i'm saying is this isn't we don't know exactly what it says what it looks like but that that presumption is is a defendable rendering of what we know well then moving on then the soldiers when they had crucified jesus took his garments and made four parts to every soldier apart and also his coat and now the coat was without seam woven from the top throughout and so garments usually by the way also refer to conduct and so on the savior's coat was seamless if you will the sort of echo of isaiah 61 really and remember adam was clothed by god very interesting thing in genesis chapter three abney made coats of skins of fig leaves and god replaced that they were clothed by god teaching them by the death of an innocent they would be covered that that that rabbinical teaching starts in genesis 3 and echoes all the way through the torah they said therefore among themselves let us not rend it that is this on on the seamless note let's not rent it let's cast lots for it who's it shall be you see we know there's four of them they divide it into four parts right but here's something that's too valuable to tear apart so let's you know they threw lots forward so we'd say if they parted and and so that let's cast lots for it those it shall be now notice what uh john tells us here that the scripture might be fulfilled which saith they parted my arraignment among them and for my vesture they did cast lots and these things the soldiers did now i don't think the fact that they parted my arraignment among them so i don't think the soldiers realized they were acting out a prophecy this was specified in psalm 22 verse 18. and let me tell you frankly if we we could spend the whole hour just on psalm 22 digging out the incredible treasures that are tucked into that from beginning to end i'll let you do that on your own let's go to verse 25 now they're stood by the cross of jesus mother and his brother's sister excuse me and his mother's sister now there stood by the cross of jesus his mother and his mother's sister mary the wife of cleopas and mary magdalene those are four women there were four soldiers in the cross dividing his clothes there are four women here and notice it's interesting that jesus assigns his mother to the john the apostle not to any of his brothers cleopas his wife is here cleopas will show up sunday afternoon on the way to emmaus we'll see that uh in that in our in that uh as we look at the post resurrection appearances we're also going to discover by the way that john will later settle in ephesus after the patmos experience he settles in ephesus writes this gospel but the second epistle of john it's amazing to me how many how few people recognize that the second epistle of john is a personal letter of john to mary jesus mother and you if you look very very carefully you can demonstrate that from the text itself and it even has a reference by the way to mary's sister which is referenced here so that echoes she's mentioned here she's at the foot of the cross and she's also alluded into in in john's letter to them so these two groups are contrasted we have four soldiers and we have four ministering women mary magdalene mary the wife of cleopas the one that's going to be on the emmaus road later mary the mother of jesus of course and finally her sister the sister of of mary the mother of jesus probably joseph's sister we assume we don't know when jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciples standing by whom he loved who is that john that's a term that john uses of himself and this disciple standing by whom he loved he saith unto his mother woman behold thy son in other words he's assigning john in that role to take his place there because his relationship with her is severed in effect the law required the firstborn to provide for parents and he is transferring that responsibility to the apostle john not his half-brothers if you will mary did have other children as listed in matthew 13 and and is alluded to in psalm 69 by the way but it's interesting even in his agony christ is on that cross even in his agony we see his shepherd's heart providing for all of this behold your son jesus was her son no longer mary is not mentioned in connection with christ's resurrection there's one appearance in a subtle appearance in acts and then she disappears from the record then he saith to the disciple that he says this then he addresses this to john behold thy mother and from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home and that's exactly what john did do he retires in ephesus and mary with him there and the saint john's a personal letter to her actually and so after this jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished that the scripture might be fulfilled saith i thirst that's exactly what psalm 69 predicted and is here he is from that extreme dehydration pleading for a drink of something it's interesting there are 28 prophecies fulfilled just while he's hanging on the cross and let you search those out on your own psalm 22 genesis 22 isaiah 53 and leviticus 16 are a good beginning i'll let you dig those out i thirsty says this is the one that balanced the clouds that fills the mighty deep who guides every river in its course waters in the fields he that caused the water to flow from the smitten rock in the wilderness who turned water into wine and said to the woman of samaria give me to drink is here saying i thirst the king of king and lord of lords before whom hell trembles and the earth is filled with dismay matchless condescending condescension from the infinity of god to the weakness of a thirsty dying man and this is all for who for you and me for you and me there's another dimension to this that doesn't often come up but those of you guys who are fathers i think you can visualize situations where your own son might be rushed to an emergency ward covered with blood because of some accident or some encounter and you know how you would immediately if you could trade places with him you are more jealous of his welfare than you are for your own with that kind of a perspective there's an atmosphere that most people miss clearly jesus is undergoing huge huge trauma here in the crucifixion but while all this is going on it's astonishing to recognize how god the father is dealing with all of this that he's allowing his son to be spit upon to be mocked to be tortured and tortured to death and not interfering the love that jesus has for us as he hangs on the cross is pretty obvious to any of us who've thought about that a bit the love of the father allowing that to run its course for our benefit is a testimony to his love for us that we often overlook love in the extreme indeed in the extreme indeed now there was a vessel that was said a vessel full of vinegar and they filled a sponge with the vinegar and put it upon hyssop and put it in his mouth when jesus therefore had received the vinegar he said it is finished and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost now the term translated it is finished in the greek is tetelestai and it's translated it is finished here it could just as easily be translated paid in full and paul makes a development of that in colossians chapter two that you may want to put in your notes and check and you know check it through and i'll also remind you what jesus said back in chapter 10 where jesus told his disciples no man taketh it from me but i lay it down of myself i have power lay it down i power to take it again this commandment have i received to my father he declares there and we're going to discover that pilate will be surprised that he died so quickly this was all designed to be that's why they went to go break the legs and all that because they had to speed it up but he find it that find that that jesus was already died the moment of his death is the moment of our salvation our justification was nailed right there and he did it all we can't add to what he did to even try is blasphemy paid in full done there is nothing left for you and i to do regarding our justification he's done it all it was all settled 2000 years ago on a wooden cross in judea so he gave up the spirit he willingly and deliberately surrendered his life as john as he described he would in john 10. the jews therefore because it was the preparation that is the preparation of the coming sabbath day on the sabbath day for that sabbath day was a high day it was a sabaton they besought pilate that their legs might be broken that they might be taken away in other words they didn't want it prolonged they want them dead so they could be taken down before the holiday and so that's the that's the so the sabbath day was a high day it's a sabaton it's one of the seven sabbaths in addition to the so-called saturdays this one was the feast of unleavened bread then came the soldiers and break the legs of the first and of the other which was crucified with them they ki they broke the legs of the other two they didn't break his legs because he was already dead but they didn't break him for another reason that they were not aware of it was prophesied that not a leg of the passover lamb not a leg would be broken they've just committed judicial murder but they were concerned about observing the ritual law now jesus declared that he would be in the grave three days to the feast of first fruits the feast of firstfruits is that is the morning after shabbat after passover so it's always a sunday morning so he had to be in the grave that day to fulfill the specifications the enemies of god are unknowingly fulfilling god's counsels when they came to jesus they saw that he was dead already they break not his legs the bones were not broken the soldier didn't follow his instructions he didn't know it but the passover line was not to have a bone broken but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced aside and forthwith there came out blood and water there are rabbinical writings speculate they don't know why it is on passover that the jews add a little warm water to the wine they have rabbinical papers that they speculate on why they do that they're not sure why they do that's a tradition well the tradition is explained right here it came out blood and water passover wine mixed with warm water the blood speaks of justification and the water speaks of sanctification and there's that something that distinction you need to study and understand and we won't try to take our time to do it here the cause of death was a ruptured or broken heart according to psalm 69 verse 20. it's interesting that the first adam had eve taken out of his side and many people think there's a type of the church implied here in terms of the last adam and his active justification and he that sought their record his record is true and he knoweth that he's that he saith it's true that ye might believe that's john's undergirding here and he's going to echo that again in the next chapter for these things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled a bone of him shall not be broken okay there are at least three of these exodus 12 46 in one house shall be eaten speaking of the passover lamb thou shalt not carry forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house neither shall ye break a bone thereof that's in exodus 12 where the passover is being instituted in egypt okay in numbers 9 verse 12 speaking of the passover observation they shall leave none of it unto the morning nor break any bone of it according to all the ordinance of the passover shall they shall keep it it's interesting in these rules about observing the passover we have this emphasis that not a bone will be broken psalm 34 verse 20 he keepeth all his bones not one of them is broken that's told of the messiah but then in the next verse john adds something else that's kind of interesting he says again another scripture saith they shall look on him whom they pierced this little illusion by john is an unusual one because it hasn't been fulfilled yet john's making a reference here and if you do a concordance about looking upon whom they pierced you're led to zechariah 12 10. but that hasn't happened yet let's take this does not happen zechariah 12 10 and in chapter 9 and 10 to give you the flavor here of zechariah 12 zechariah writes and i will pour up on the ho or should say god says through zechariah i will pour upon the house of david and upon the inhabitants of jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications and then verse 10 says and they shall look upon me the one whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn now it's very interesting the way they translate this in the masoretic is an error and a dr william welty has written a 35-page paper on the erroneous and inconsistent rendering of usher there in the jewish publication satiety's 1917 publication of the tanakh the 158 other occurrence argue against the traditional jewish rendering because they have thrust them through in other words if you look this up in the in the jewish rendering you'll notice that they've twisted a little to hide this they shall look upon me the one whom they have pierced is what it says and the experts nail that scholastically it gets even better by the way because if you take the trouble to look at this verse in the hebrew in this place where they shall look upon me whom they have pierced between the me and the one whom they pierced there are two little letters that are not translated there's an aleph and a towel remember they go backwards the alps on the right the towel left alph and the towel now that elephant tau if it's connected with the dagesh can be used to indicate a direct has about four uses in grammar but that's not connected this way it's floating there untranslated if that was the greek equivalent would be see this they look upon me the aleph and the tao whom they've pierced if i do that in greek it'll ring more familiar they shall look upon me the alpha and the omega whom they've pierced the book of revelation those are titles that jesus in the greek takes of himself the aleph and the tao is used that way right here in zechariah 12 verse 9 and 10. and the there are people that will take exception but there are people that are in the minority they're not in the know that is that is not that is um an untranslated pair of legends and you find those several places in the scripture where it speaks of elohim elohim the aleph and the tao the beginning and the end so i think that's kind of fun but moving on verse 38 and after this joseph of arimathea being a disciple of jesus but secretly for fear of the jews besought pilate that he might take away the body of jesus and pilate gave him leave and he came therefore and took the body of jesus now this is quite there's a lot that we can draw from this verse the fact that joseph aromathea had direct access to pilate tells you a couple of things he was not a casual guy he's one of the wealthiest people in the area he's the one that apparently owned the property for the garden tomb and all of that right next to golgotha and uh he also apparently was the next of kin because he would have that's what that would he would have the claim on the body being the next of kin and uh i i i remember very vividly one easter morning when chuck smith from the pulpit on easter morning pointed out that the pilot was really surprised first a number of reasons that um that well i should back up a second here there's something else you might want to know it says the disciple of jesus but secretly for fear of the jews that's a mistranslation the word in the uh jesus amathia we've dealt with he's had access to the procurator this thought anyone could get at pilate of course but and he may have been the next of kin but there's another thing here secretly the way it's translated implies that's an adverb that's a mistake in the greek it turns out it's secreted not secretly it's an adjective because of just one letter difference that was missed by the translators he was secreted he wasn't just secretly a believer he was in hiding he was under cover he was secreted that's why when he surfaces here pilots surprised okay for any number of reasons but i remember chuck smith from his pulpit when easter pointed out that the pilate was really shocked he turned to joseph amity and he says you're going to you have this brand new tomb never been used for your family and so on and you're going to give it to this criminal and job says oh they it's just for the weekend a little levity a little levity okay i remember when chuck did that on easter but i couldn't believe he'd do it it's a chuckle of course but to do it from the public from the pulpit on on easter morning the tomb we know belonged to a rich man from a number of passages it was near the crucifixion location john tells us it had never been used before it was a brand new sepulcher we know it was hewn out of the rock it had to be to separate it from any other grapes so it would be considered a clean place levitically and they had a stone rolled over the door mark tells us there's actually 18 details in the text that supports the idea that's fulfilled by the garden tomb and i'll come to that in a minute but anyway let's finish this verse 39 here there came also nicodemus which at the first came to jesus by night remember that back in john 3 and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes about a hundred pound weight then took they the body of jesus and wound it in linen clothes with the spices as the manner of the jews is to bury and so these spices are there's about a hundred pounds of these spices that's a a lot and the women who witnessed this burial returned home to prepare the spices and ointments to finish the procedure later luke gives us those details but here's the john but john gives us a little more he says now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden and there was the garden is where near golgath it's right next door it's right there and in the garden a new sepulcher that we're in was never man yet laid there laid they jesus therefore because of the jews preparation day for the sepulcher was nigh at hand you with me so far okay and he brought fine linen took him down wrapped him in the linen laid him in the sepulchre which was hewn out of the rock and rolled a stone unto the unto the door of the sepulcher this is from mark 15 the quote here and mary magdalene and mary the mother of joseph beheld where he was laid he the place was shown out of a rock rolled a stone these this is all out of the text interestingly enough okay it's interesting i when i was doing the my studies in the book of leviticus i obtained a copy of the book the commentary on the vegas by andrew bonar it's a classic published in 1846 and he makes a lot of he makes quite a presentation in the text of leviticus the very spot that criminals were put to death was where joseph's new tomb was hewn out of a rock the stony sides of the tomb the new tomb the clean place where jesus was laid were part of the malefactor's hill his dead body is with the rich man and the wicked in the hour of his death this is isaiah 53 predicted his grave is the property of a rich man and yet the rocks which form the partition between his tomb and that of the other calvary male factors are themselves part of golgotha in other words by being carved out of thing that specification was imperative i want you to notice the date of his commentary where he's describing the tomb as it comes out of the text the biblical text okay if you visit the garden tomb in jerusalem it's usually it's usually the highlight of your visit to actually be there at the what they call the garden tomb and it's interesting how the details of this are described by bonar just from the torah text 37 years before this space was discovered by general gordon they call it gordon's actually general charles george gordon was a distinguished british general commissioned second lieutenant in 1852 he discovered the area originally derisively called gordon's calvary which is now known as the garden tomb he discovered that in 1883 but what really struck me when i checked my commentary from bonar is that he described this just from the biblical text in 1846 in fact before that 37 years before its discovery by general gordon i think that's very very provocative and people some people say well that's just gordon's view no there's there's a number of ways it seems to fit the text perfectly so there are many there are many sites in israel that you visit that are traditional and i believe that most the traditions are wrong there are a few things you can counter you know the sea of galilee is the sea of galilee okay well i also happen to hold it doesn't mean i'm right but just for what it's worth to you i am i have studied this quite a bit and i personally am convinced that the the garden tomb is the tomb that jesus laid in because of its fitting the text there's at least over 18 ways it specifically fits the situation for what it's worth and there are others people with different views and then we have in matthew 27 we'll pick up a little description here now the next day that followed the day of the preparation the chief priests and the pharisees came together unto pilate saying sir we remember that the deceiver said while he was yet alive after three days i will rise again command therefore that the sepulcher be made sure until the third day lest his disciples come by night and steal him away and say to the people he has risen from the dead so the last error will be worse than the first interesting comment they admit it was a mistake that's kind of fun they also are aware of the three days you know the disciples weren't they remembered it later when it happened they tied it all together but it's interesting how the the the enemies of christ are sensitive to that they recognize there's a hazard to them here i love what pilate said to them he said unto them you have your watch go your way make it as sure as you can i love that so they went and made the separation stealing the stone and sealing the stone and setting a watch so they went and made the sepulcher shore sealing the stone and setting a watch i personally hear an echo in pilate's voice it causes me to suspect that when he later finds out that the tomb is empty he wasn't surprised i think it's gradually dawning on him that this is something there's more at issue here than he had any ability to grasp so make it as sure as you can i love that i personally suspect i don't know obviously i suspect that pilate may be in heaven when we get there there are legends in the among the coptics in egypt that he did come to faith later he went to rome and got fired over some issues and there but the tradition there's no clear documentary evidence either way plus or minus we don't know but uh jesus arrived at golgotha he refused the offer of wine vinegar and myrrh he was nailed across between the two thieves father forgive them for they know not what they do and then we have the garments allocated the jews mock jesus and darkness from noon to 3 pm my god my god why i still forsaken me i'm thirsty then he drank the wine vinegar and he said it is finished paid in full and so on and say christ father unto thy hands i commend my spirit and he gives up the ghost and it's that point that the temple curtain is torn in twain and the roman soldiers themselves declare surely he was the son of god and there were seven cries from the cross father forgive them for they know not what they do today thou shalt be with me in paris he says to the uh the the the saved one of the two woman behold thy son and behold thy mother when he con consigns mary's care to john my god my god why hast thou forsaken me of course is his cry and i thirst and to tell us die and finally father into thy hands i commit my sp my spirit i'm very impressed with salvador dali's rendering of corpus christi i was stunned to discover that salvador dali was enough of a mathematician to realize that this is a three-dimensional representation of a four-dimensional event that he understood what a a tesseract is a a four-dimensional cube unraveled in three dimensions that's a very sophisticated issue mathematically i was fascinated he he adapted that for his rendering of this issue the old testament prophecies quote just the ones quoted in the gospels that he'd make a triumphal entry in jerusalem he'd betrayed by a friend for 30 pieces of silver he would be smitten like a shepherd he would be given vinegar and gall they would cast lots for his garments his side would be pierced all this is quoted in the gospels from the from the old testament and not a bone would be broken we've covered that would die among male factors his dying words were foretold he would be buried by a rich man he would rise from the dead the third day we'll cover that in our next session and the resurrection would be would be followed by the destruction of jerusalem and indeed it was 38 years later so we have the summary he was crucified on a cross of wood yet he made the hill on which it stood what held him to that cross it wasn't the nails at any time he could have said enough i'm out of here it what held him to the cross it was his love for you and me and as we try to embrace this it's overwhelming it's overwhelming but it's important that we do now next time we're not we're we're not going to leave you with a with a a crucified christ we want to we we worship a resurrected christ so in the next session we're going to deal with the resurrection the most phenomenal validation of everything that's going on here i'm going to encourage you to read not only john 20 chapter that's next but matthew 28 mark 16 luke 24. those are the last chapters in each of those gospels read all four of them so we can really get our mind around the issue if you're wondering where i got that picture that's a picture of the garden tomb in the middle of the night where before the roll the stone was lost and once you to discover photoshop you won't trust any picture you see again okay but anyway also first first corinthians 15 you might take a look at what paul suggests is the most essential epistle chapter in the bible which really of course elaborates on the resurrection so with that let's stand for a closing word of prayer of our hearts father we thank you for who you are we thank you for this incredible gift we do pray father through your holy spirit you would help us appropriate these fantastic events to our own lives we stagger as we try to grasp the extremes that you've gone to on our behalf what a mystery that you love us that much we do pray father that through your spirit and through your word you would help us understand more thoroughly just what it is you would have of us in the days that remain as we commit ourselves into your hands without any reservations whatsoever in the name of yeshua our precious lord indeed amen [Music] you

Channel: The Reconciled

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Length: 70min 26sec (4226 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 05 2021