The People surrounding the Crucifixion

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2015 · 9 August 2015

Let us look tonight at Matthew 27:38-44, the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you remember that Jesus said in Matthew 16:4 that His generation was a wicked generation? And Paul, identifying Christ rejecters in general, says that basically they are filled with all wickedness, Romans 1:29. All of this is true because of what Jeremiah explained, that the heart of man is desperately wicked.

This wickedness of man is clearly seen in the execution of Jesus Christ and this was Matthew's particular concern. And as we have seen here, wickedness is not content just to execute Jesus Christ, it must torment Him also in the process. It must slap Him and stab Him and spit on Him and defame Him and blaspheme Him and keep that up all the time He is dying. Such is the cruelty of the human heart.

As we read in Isaiah 53, that was the mark of His life. He suffered more sorrow than all man who have ever lived combined. According to Isaiah 53:4, He carried our griefs and bore our sorrows and in addition to that His own sorrow in being alienated and separated from His Father. So He not only suffered more than any man has suffered, but He suffered more than all men together have ever suffered.

How did He suffer? Let us see, He suffered from temptation. Hebrews 4:15, “He was in all points tempted like as we are.” He suffered in self denial. He refused to have those normal comforts of life. He deprived Himself. As Paul says in Philippians 2:7-8, “but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” He knew no personal possessions. He knew hunger and thirst and weariness. And He suffered rejection, He was hated, despised, mocked, reviled, rebuked, blasphemed, and falsely accused all His life long.

And now it is reaching the culmination of the events surround His cross. This great monumental suffering is because He suffered the wrath of God on the cross when He became sin, God then had to pour out all of His fury against all human sin on Jesus Christ. Now as we come to the scene before us in verses 38 to 44, we see His suffering at the hands of different kinds of wicked men.

We noted the last time that there were four different groups that appeared in the scene. Let's call them the ignorant wicked, the knowing wicked, the fickle wicked and the religious wicked. And every person in the world who does not come to faith in Jesus Christ fits into one of these groups. They were there at the cross and they are now everywhere around us today.

Now last time we looked at the ignorant wicked who were illustrated to us by the callous soldiers in verses 27 through 37. We saw that the soldiers basically were Roman Legionnaires stationed in Caesarea, with Pilate. They really had no first hand knowledge of Jesus. To them Jesus was just another criminal and a somewhat deranged one at that. They no doubt think Him to be somewhat deficient intellectually and mentally. Through all the tortures, He never says a word which probably confirms their suspicions.

They are the ones who have Him as we see verse 27-30. They have scourged Him and then they stripped Him. They bowed their knees before Him and mocked Him saying, "Hail, king of the Jews." And as they rose from the ground they spit in His face. Then they took the reed out of His hand and smashed Him in the head with His own scepter. He was an object of mockery. And the soldiers trained in killing and maiming people enjoyed their torture of Jesus Christ.

And verse 31 then, after they had finished their mockery, they take the robe of Him and put back on His own garment. And they lead Him away to crucify Him. As they leave the city in verse 32, they force a man by the name of Simon from Cyrene to carry the cross of Christ. They then, verse 33, come to a place called Golgotha, meaning skull place named for the shape of the hill. They give Him wine mingled with myrrh that would act like a sedative for those who face death.

He tasted it and wouldn't drink it because He wanted to go to the cross with all of His senses acute and alert. The cross would be lying on the ground, the victim would be placed down on the cross and first His feet would be extended, and then a large nail would be driven through the arch of one foot and then the arch of another foot. And then both of His hands would be extended and great nails would be driven through His wrists.

Once the victim was nailed there, the cross would be picked up and dropped into a hole. The victim is now crucified. Slowly He would begin to sag down, more and more weight is being placed upon the nails running through His wrists, such that excruciating pain would shoot up the arms. And so they crucified Him. And as you know, they divided His garments by casting lots. And verse 36 says, "Sitting down they guarded Him there."

Dr. Davis Truman writes, "At this point, great waves of cramps sweep over the muscles. With these cramps comes the inability to push Himself upward. Hanging by His arms, the pectoral muscles are paralyzed. Air can be drawn into the lungs but it can't be exhaled. Finally carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream. He would grasps short breaths of air, hours of searing pain as tissue is torn. A deep crushing pain in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with fluid and begins to compress the heart. And this leads to death."

What agony. And the soldiers just sit there and watch. They have seen it over and over. Do they know who He is? No, there's a sign of the accusation in verse 37. Pilate, wanting to show the innocence of Christ puts over the head of Jesus, "This is Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews." in all three languages of the times so everyone could read it. And thus in sarcastic words he mocked the Jews by saying to the whole world, "There's your king, you despicable people, you deserve such a king."

Pilate's mockery actually stated the truth. Jesus is the King not only of the Jews but of everyone, but the soldiers were ignorant of that. And the world is still full of people who reject Jesus Christ out of ignorance. It is a willful ignorance, it is an unnecessary ignorance but it is nonetheless ignorance. And many don't seek to find out, because they love the world so much.

But there is another wicked group besides that group and that's the one we come to in verse 38, “Then were there two robbers crucified with Him, one on the right hand and another on the left.” Let us call these people the knowing wicked. Now they don't know everything but they do know a little. Now this was another way to dishonor Christ, to put Him in between robbers, evil doers, criminals. So He is with the wicked in His death.

The word used here basically means bandit, or plundering robber, not a petty thief. These are robbers who kill, who are the worst of criminals. They knew something of the claims of Jesus as is evidenced by what they say. We find that in verse 44, “And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.” So they knew some of the claims of Jesus.

They were familiar because they were a part of the Jewish society. Obviously they knew something more than the Roman legionnaires would have known who had nothing to do with life in that part of the world. But they are also wicked, they heap insults at Jesus. These were materialistic bandits, whose life revolved around possessions and obtaining material by force. They have no thoughts about truth, justice, honor and godliness, and they have no concern for morality.

There are many people like them who know about Jesus, but their life is all concerned with material things. They have little regard righteousness and truth. They live for self indulgence and they pay a great price for it. And to show you how deeply committed they were to their life style, here they are hanging on a cross in the hours of their own death and they are still insulting the one who claims to be the Son of God.

But they are not the worst rejecters because there's another group. We see them in verses 39 and 40. We can call them the fickle wicked. Verse 39 - 40 says, "And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Since people were crucified along a highway, the road to the north of the city would be full of people because it was the day of the Passover.

Here were these Jews probably some of the same crowd that had cried "Crucify Him." The same crowd on Monday that had hailed Him with their hosannas, "Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord, the son of David." This is the same fickle crowd. They wanted His miracles, and they listened to His teachings. And they knew who He claimed to be and they knew there were many demonstrations that proved those claims.

But now He is just a victim of a Roman crucifixion. He is rejected by them. Actually, they kept on reviling Him; it's continual blasphemy. And did it with the wagging of their heads in a taunting kind of mocking form. Psalm 22 predicted this is exactly what they would do. It says in Psalm 22:7-8, “All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; 8 “He trusts in the LORD; let Him deliver Him; let Him rescue Him, for He delights in Him!”

Now why did they mock Jesus in verse 40? Because those were the two things that came out of the trial of Christ before Annas and Caiaphas. You remember back in Matthew 26:61, they got some false witnesses for that Jewish trial who said, "This fellow," that is Jesus said, "I am able to destroy the temple of God and build it in three days." Well, actually Jesus said this a long time prior to this, in fact, nearly three years earlier when He had first come to Jerusalem. And at that time in John 2:21 He said that He meant the temple of His body, right?

And then over in Matthew 26:63-64, Caiaphas said to Him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus said to him, “You have said so.” So they sort of capture these two things: the accusation that Jesus was going to destroy the temple and the claim that He was the Son of God which they said was blasphemy. The fickle crowd that was throwing palm branches and hailing Him as the Messiah before, now was mocking and blaspheming His name on Friday.

They are reminiscent of people today. Many people have been to church, maybe they have been raised in the church, and they know the message. Maybe they had Christian parents and Christian training. They maybe have made a profession of faith at some point, and they have been baptized. But that's all in the past. They're not interested in that anymore. Jesus didn't fulfill their expectation. They thought He ought to attack Rome, not them.

How could He be the Messiah? He has been here all week and now look at Him, He is hanging on a cross, put there by the Romans. He is a victim. This is not our Messiah, because they assumed the Messiah would come to defeat Rome and all the other nations. They had forgotten their praises and now in their disappointment, they had turned against Him and were blaspheming His name. The consequences for that are tremendous.

And the world is full of people who taunt Jesus now, who once hailed Him. Oh, it was never real salvation. But they knew the truth about Him and now they reject it. The fickle wicked are really traitors, but they are not the worst group. The worst group is yet to come in verses 41 to 43, the religious wicked. They are illustrated to us by the hypo-critical religious leaders, who appear to represent God and truth and purity and the Word of God, but the truth is that they are filled with hate toward Christ of God Himself.

Verse 41-42, “So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.” All those various orders of priests were mocking Him along with the scribes who were the authorities on the law and the elders who were supposed to be the revered and renowned men of maturity and wisdom in the land. They constitute the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Israel.

"He saved others" and they meant by that His healing ministry, and His deliverance from demons. "He did it for others, Himself He cannot save." There is never an indication that the religious leaders of Israel denied His miracles. But they said they were done and accomplished by Satan. They said He does what He does by the power of Beelzebul, but they never denied them.

And when they see Jesus hanging on the cross unable to come down, this affirmed in their minds that indeed He did have power but it was Satan's power. So when we put Him on the cross, we can be sure He will stay there because God is on our side. Look, the fact that He is there shows that His power is not as great as ours. His is using Satan's power, ours is God's power, so they reasoned. So they attacked His power.

Then in verse 43 they attack His person. He had claimed to be the Son of God on many occasions, and now they throw that in His face. They have all their religion but they had nothing to do with God. They were blind leaders, false teachers, false prophets and hypocrites, who are doomed to hell. Everybody who is unbelieving in any period of time is as guilty as the crowd there.

Zechariah 12:10 says that someday Israel will look on Him whom they have pierced and mourn for Him as an only Son. And Hebrews 6 says that anyone who rejects Christ is guilty of crucifying the Son of God and putting Him to open shame. You either stand with those who believe or you stand with those who crucify. Christ on the cross said this, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."

Look now at Luke 23:39-43, “One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

I don't know where you are today. Jesus longs to embrace you into His arms, to give you the salvation He so freely offered. He stayed on the cross not because He couldn't come down, He stayed on the cross because He wouldn't come down. And the Savior shed tears for those who shed His very blood. Such is the compassion of God and the gift of salvation. Let's bow in prayer.