Responses to the Death of Christ

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2015 · 23 August 2015

Let us this evening study Matthew 27:54-56, “ When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” 55 There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee ministering to him, 56 among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.”

Let us look at the four responses to the death of Christ. They demonstrate the kind of responses we can see even today. There is the response, first, of saving faith; then the response of shallow conviction; then the response of sympathetic loyalty and then finally the response of selfish fear. Two of them are responses of unbelievers, and two of them responses of believers, and they are the same responses we find today to the cross of Christ. So it has a practical application to our own time.

First, look at the best response of an unbeliever and that is the response of saving faith. That is illustrated by the centurion and some soldiers mentioned in verse 54, "When the centurion and those who were with him, watching over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God.” The centurion was the commander over a hundred men, who has been given the task of guarding Jesus, which started when the trial began before Pilate early on Friday.

So they have been in charge of Jesus for quite a while now. And the centurion has become aware of all the issues surrounding Jesus. It may well have been that he not only heard all the cries of the Jews and their accusations, but well may as well have heard the conversation privately between Jesus and Pilate related to Jesus' kingship. So they are the same men who nailed Jesus to the cross, who have pressed a crown of thorns into His brow, hit Him in the head with reeds, spit on Him, and mocked Him.

They are the very men who gambled for His garments in an amazing display of indifference. Frankly, they are ignorant. They are part of the scene because they, as Roman soldiers, have to do what their commander tells them and Pilate has put them in charge of Jesus. The centurion knew the Jews hated Him. They knew the Jews have accused Jesus of claiming to be the Son of God, claiming to be a king, therefore being a threat to Rome, being a threat to Judaism.

However, something happens that changes what they think. In verse 54 it says, "When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe.” Now think about this, when it went instantly dark like midnight at noon and the sun failed, and when the earthquake came and split the ground and the rocks split open and the graves split open and the veil in the temple was ripped from top to bottom, they knew something was happening that was way out of the ordinary.

It says then in verse 54, "They were filled with awe." They were very afraid. It is not just being afraid of an earthquake or being afraid of a darkness. It is the idea that inherent within their fear is a spiritual awe. And all of a sudden, they come to the conclusion that this is not just another criminal, not just a rebel, a deranged man and an impostor. The phenomena is overwhelming to them.

The centurion has heard Jesus speak. He has heard His words on the cross, profound words which have penetrated his heart. He has seen all of this amazing miraculous phenomena taking place. It is that reverential fear that comes to one who knows that he may be under the judgment of God. And the awareness of their sin in doing what they did to this man leads them to one other step. And the centurion said this, but it wasn't just him, it was the other soldiers as well, "Truly, this was God's Son."

The fear indicates the sin, the confession indicates the salvation. If their fear was only a human fear, they would have cried for help or they would have run. But it wasn't, it was awe that men only reserve for God. In fact, in Mark 15:39 says that it was immediately after the centurion heard Jesus say "It is finished. Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit," that he said, "Truly, this was God's Son." So it was those final words of Jesus that just drove the truth into his heart.

How does he know that? Was it the demeanor of Jesus, the graciousness of His spirit on the cross, the silence when rebuked, the sense of being on a divine mission which He has finished? Do you know why he knew this was God's Son? The only way anybody can ever know that is by the Holy Spirit. In Matthew 16:16, Peter said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus said to him, "Flesh and blood has not revealed that to you but My Father in heaven has." Peter knew Jesus to be the Son of the living God because the Holy Spirit told him that. That is a sovereignly revealed truth.

1 Corinthians 12:3 says, "No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Spirit," That is not something a human being concludes in his own mind. What you have here is a product of the Spirit of God just like you have it in Matthew 16. The Spirit of God had taken this open hearted centurion and a few of the other soldiers who were there and began through Christ on the cross and His attitude and His words and all the miracle phenomena all around to bring them to faith that only comes from God.

Further, Luke 23:47 says he also glorified God, affirmed the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ and then declared Him to be God's Son. Now that kind of faith is saving faith. If the thief on the cross by simply saying, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom," can receive a guarantee of eternal salvation, certainly this man could be saved with this kind of faith. He was saved at the foot of the cross.

The soldier is using this title in reference to what the Jews have been accusing Jesus of. And if you go back to Matthew 26:63, the Jewish accusation comes forth there, "I adjure you, says the high priest, by the living God that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God." Now the Jews are accusing Jesus of claiming to be the only Son of the only God, which is to them blasphemous. This Roman is only responding to that Jewish accusation by saying, "Truly, He was indeed exactly who He claimed to be."

Do you understand the grace and mercy of God? Do you understand the love of God? Then understand this, Jesus Christ in the process of being crucified, redeemed the people who crucified Him. So that when Jesus said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," what did the Father do? He forgave them. That prayer was answered in the very moment of His death.

We can see the best fulfillment ever in John 12:32 where Christ said, "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to Myself." And there He was lifted up on the cross, and indeed He drew a thief from one side and a group of soldiers from His feet to Himself. O, the unspeakable grace of God that He won the very soldiers that killed Him on that cross. So the first and the best response that a pagan could ever have would be the response of saving faith. And the centurion sets the standard for that.

There is a second response is the response of shallow conviction. In Luke 23:47 the centurion saw what was done glorified God, and said certainly this was a righteous man after he heard, "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit." But then verse 48, and the shallow conviction is illustrated by the crowd, “And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.”

They saw the same things, the darkness, the earthquake, the rocks splitting, the graves opening and the veil of the temple ripped. They knew something very wrong. They would see all of this going around and their understanding of the Old Testament would tell them that God was judging and they would feel guilt, and they would feel sin. We know that because it says, "when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.” That was a sign of their grief, a sign of their guilt and remorse, self accusation and despair.

And it still goes on today. There are people who see the cross and they understand that Jesus is there because He is bearing their sins. They feel bad about that. But what is so shocking about verse 48, it says they beat their chests and returned. There's no salvation, there is just conviction. Like the people who come and hear the message today and they feel convicted and there's anxiety in their heart and they know they are sinners going to hell. But they go home and it passes. But they turn on the television, they eat a sandwich and watch a football game. It's gone, back to life as usual.

But look what did happen in Acts 2:36. On the day of Pentecost, a few weeks later, the same crowd is in Jerusalem all gathered to hear Peter. And there were many who were there at the foot of the cross, who beat their breasts and went home. But now Peter stands up to preach, and he indicts them for killing Christ. He tells about the resurrection, how God raised Christ from the dead and he says, "The same Jesus whom you crucified, God has made Lord and Messiah."

So verse 37-38, "Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter says in verse 38, " Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Verse 40-41, “And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save your-selves from this crooked generation. 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

Look at 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, “As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. 10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” The soldiers were sorry and by the Spirit of God and in answer to the prayer of Jesus, they were saved. The crowd that did not believe was also sorry but theirs was not a godly sorrow to repentance to salvation, they resented only the consequences.

In Matthew 27 we see a third response called sympathetic loyalty. Verse 55 is an illustration, "There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee ministering to him." Later on, according to John's gospel, they approach the cross and it is then that Jesus speaks to them and commits the two to each other for care. Here are these women who are loving and sympathetic, though their hopes are crushed, Jesus is gone. And they have been watching their Master die. Their loyalties are so deep.

They have no fear of the Jews. They have no fear of the Romans. Nothing can overpower their love and their sympathy for Christ. But where are the disciples? According to John 19:26-27, only John was there. We don't know how many women were there. According to Luke 8:2 we get a glimpse, "And also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities."

Verse Luke 8:2-3, “Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.” They provided meals, they gave money, they gave garments, and they gave out of their possessions. They attended to the disciples and the Savior as they went about in their Galilean ministry. Jesus held them to Himself like the sun holds the planets. They just never left Him.

Don't ever underestimate how the Lord Jesus Christ looks upon the role of a woman. These women were the original eye witnesses to the death of Jesus Christ and before any man ever saw the risen Christ, a woman did? And not just any woman, but one of these women. Therefore, in the early church the primary sources for the reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are these loyally sympathetic women.

The Holy Spirit allows us to meet a few of them in verse 56, “among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.” Mary Magdalene simply means she is from Magdala, a little town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. The reason she is called that is because she has no husband and no children. Notice the second one is Mary the mother of James, and the next one is the mother of Zebedee's children. John tells us her name was Salome.

How about you? When the world is hostile toward Christ and they are mocking Christ and laughing at Christ, do you just fade away or do you say something back? Would the whole world know that you belong to Jesus Christ? Is your love for Christ and loyalty to Christ so magnetic that you're attached to Jesus Christ no matter what it costs, no matter what anybody says, no matter what hostilities you have to endure? Are you unwavering in your commitment?

There is still a fourth response: selfish fear. Who's the illustration?" The disciples of Jesus. But it doesn't say anything about them in Matthew. It doesn't say anything about them there because they weren't there. But that says a lot. Did they lose their salvation? No, because the Lord upholds them. But they sure entered into cowardice. They violated the basic principle of discipleship from Matthew 10:38, "You're not worthy to be My disciple unless you take up your cross and follow Me." We have to be willing to give our lives.

Isn't it sad that He died alone with only the women and John? Isn't it pathetic after all He'd done they weren't there? And it still goes on today. There are still those of us and times for all of us when we should be standing for Christ in a situation and we aren't. We're gone somewhere. We hide, we fade. We want to save our reputation or our name or our prestige or our career. We don't want to be named with Jesus Christ.

So, where are you? Do you want to be like that centurion who says, truly He is God's Son? Or are you like the crowd? You feel the conviction but you're going to go home and it will pass. If you're a believer, are you like the women? Are you there with sympathetic loyalty standing for Jesus Christ whatever the cost, no matter goes on around you? Or are you like the disciples, hiding somewhere in selfish fear so nobody finds out who you really belong to? Let us privately ponder this important issue. Let us pray.