The Wicked Crucifixion

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2015 · 26 July 2015

Death by crucifixion seems to include all that pain and death can have. No one was concerned with a quick and painless death. No one was concerned with the preservation of any measure of human dignity. Quite the opposite. Crucifiers sought an agonizing torture and complete humiliation that exceeds any other design for death. That was the torture that our Lord Jesus Christ endured for us.

But it also demonstrates the grace and mercy and the love of God like no other event in history can. And so we could go to a text about the cross and spend an entire focus on God's self-revelation of love and grace in the cross. That is, for the most part, the intention of the gospel of John. As John writes about the cross, it is always from the viewpoint of God. He shows that it is a fulfillment of prophecy, that this is God's plan.

But that is not Matthew's purpose. Matthew approaches the cross from the very opposite viewpoint. Matthew describes the crucifixion not from the standpoint of the goodness of God but from the standpoint of the wickedness of men. How evil men are and how much the death of Jesus Christ demonstrates the wickedness of the human heart. So there are two opposite truths revealed in this one event.

Matthew's intent is to present the wickedness of man in the scene of the cross. And from verses 27 through 44, we see four groups of the wicked around the cross. The ignorant wicked, the knowing wicked, the fickle wicked and the religious wicked. This evening, we want to look at group one because it occupies the longer part of the text and next time we will discuss the final three.

The ignorant wicked are illustrated by the callous soldiers in Matthew 27: 27-37. Notice verse 27, "Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him.” Let us stop for a moment. Pilate had already sinned against justice and against conscience. He has sinned against truth and against integrity and against character. He has sold his soul for popularity and security. He is a miserable fearful man. He is forced to do things to Jesus he knows are against justice.

So, as we read this passage, Jesus has already endured the scourging mentioned in verse 26. He has been tied to a post by His hands, His feet suspended off the ground. Two Romans soldiers, one on each side, have wooden handles with leather thongs, which at the end have rocks, bones and sharp metal attached. And then they proceed to lacerate the body of Jesus Christ until blood is oozing out all over His body. This was the first thing that was carried out by the soldiers.

For the most part, Rome conscripted soldiers out of the countries it occupied and frequently in Israel they had brought in soldiers that they had taken from Syria. They used these soldiers because the Syrians could speak Aramaic which was the common language of Israel. And so you have soldiers that reflect the Roman military power and presence. They were not Jews because Jews were exempted from any service in the Roman military and would not at all desire to do that.

And so, under Pilate’s leadership, they mock Jesus' claim to be a king. Now the soldiers, did not do this independent of Pilate. For when John's gospel tells us that Jesus later was brought out to the crowd after scouring and in this garb of the king with which they dressed Him, it says that Pilate came out also. So Pilate must have been aware of what was going on and wanting Jesus to appear as a mock king to show how foolish their claim was that this man was a threat to Rome or Israel.

Jesus now becomes the object of the soldier’s ridicule as they all gather around Him and begin their little game. The first thing they did in verse 28, was strip Him. They love to do this because they don't like the Jews. They have had a lot of problems and any way they can mock these Jews, they enjoy thoroughly. And there are no Jews in the praetorium. The Bible tells us the Jews wouldn't come in there lest they would be defiled and thus be unable to celebrate the Passover.

And then it says in verse 28, "They put on Him a scarlet robe." In Pilate's praetorium is a discarded robe that one of the soldier's would wear as an outer garment, a rough cloth so that he would not be cold. Matthew says it was a scarlet color. John tells us it was purple. The difference between scarlet and purple isn't great and an old robe is maybe faded in certain places. Maybe in the mind of John it was intended to represent a purple robe because purple was the color of majesty and they were mocking Him as a king.

Then verse 29 says, "And twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in His right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” In Genesis 3:18 after the sin of Adam and Eve, God curses the earth and says, “Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.” We can see the crown symbolic of' His bearing the curse of the world. For on the cross, Jesus not only took away sin but He removed the curse of the whole earth, Amen?

In addition verse 29 says they put a reed in His right hand. The right hand was the hand of authority. And the reed was the symbol of a scepter of the king and this was to be His scepter. And if He was a king, He had to have a scepter. And they bowed the knee before Him as if He were king. And they mocked Him saying, "Hail, king of the Jews."

And so, they carried on their game further in verse 30, “And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head.” The Greek text says they repeatedly struck Him on the head. They did this primarily to show how powerless His authority was. What kind of a king are you, we can rip the very scepter out of your hand and beat on your head with it? Your sovereignty is a laugh.

John 19:3 adds in the same scene, "They kept punching Him." It's a scene of human evil. They don't even know Him. It is the depravity of the human heart, given the opportunity to do whatever it wants it does. It is a brutal amusement. And through it all Jesus endures, He offers no resistance. He is willing to suffer for sinners, to suffer not only the death on the cross but everything that came along with it. He will fulfill His calling. Hebrews 12:3 says, “He endured such contradiction of sinners.”

So, verse 31 says, "And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.” Crucifixion originated in Iran and they had a deity by the name of Ormuzd. And he was the god who considered the earth to be sacred. And so anyone who was executed had to be lifted up above the earth lest his evil would defile the sacredness of the earth. And so the Persians devised crucifixion as a way to suspend a person above the earth in execution.

It came from the Persians, then to the Carthaginians and after that the Romans took it and used it extensively. From the time of Christ and around the era of Roman occupation of Israel, the Romans crucified at least 30,000 Jews. And they did it all next to the highways in order to warn people what happens to someone who violates Roman law. And so, they followed the normal procedure with Jesus.

Verse 32 just says, "As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross.” Matthew says, "As they went out..." he's referring to go out of the city because execution always had to be out of the city. That was a part of Levitical Law. And that is why it says in Hebrews 13:12, “So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.”

That man, Simon of Cyrene then took His cross. Matthew doesn't tell us what went on before they went out of the city. John 19:16-17 explains it, "So he delivered Him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, 17 and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.” There is nothing in Scripture to suggest that Jesus carried only a portion of the cross. That wood would weigh over 200 pounds on His back in the condition that He was in.

Typically a prisoner would be surrounded by four Roman soldiers, one at each corner, moving Him through with other soldiers before and behind. And now this being the very Passover day, with everything in motion, the place would be crawling with people. And they would parade a prisoner down the main streets. And hanging around the prisoner's neck was a placard on which was the indictment for which the prisoner was to be executed so that everybody would know the price of the crime.

And it was during that procession that Jesus gave His last public message. It is recorded in Luke 23:27-29, "And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. 28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 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!’ Now that is something that no Jewish mother could ever imagine. Jesus says you better weep for yourselves and your children because the day is coming when you will wish you had no children.

Verse 30, “Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’” You are going to have such terrifying judgment; you' will wish you had no children to be slaughtered before your very eyes. Then verse 31, "For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” What does that mean? Jesus is the green tree and the population of Jerusalem is the dry tree. If the Romans will do this to Him who is innocent, what will they do to the Jews who are guilty?

A green tree is not burned, however the Jews are the dry tree, they should be burned. That's His implication. You burn dry wood, not green wood. When the time for your judgment comes, watch and see what will happen to you. And we know He is referring to the destruction of 70 A.D. which was precipitated by their hostilities against Rome. Jesus' last message to them on the way to His cross was a message of coming judgment.

But when they had just come out of the city it was apparent that even Jesus, in all of the strength that human kind could ever have, has run out. His blood has drained. The agony is beyond belief, a full week, a late night Passover, no sleep, the betrayal of Judas, the defection of the disciples, the long trials, the injustice, and all the beatings. So they find a man from Cyrene, Simon by name, and they compelled him to bear the cross.

Cyrene was a Greek settlement. It was located west of Alexandria and today it would be located in Libya. There were many Jews there because it was a trade center. Simon was a Jew from that north coast of Africa who was in Jerusalem because it was Passover. His name is a Jewish name, Simon. Mark 15:21 tells us that they compelled Simon of Cyrene who just passed by coming into Jerusalem.

No Roman would carry a criminal's cross, certainly not a Jewish criminal, certainly not such a criminal as this strange and bizarre character. And then Mark 15:21 says that he was the father of Alexander and Rufus. Now that's interesting, these are Greek names. But who are these two and why are their names identified? Well, remember Mark wrote his gospel from Rome and the first readers may well have been Romans and here may well have been two that they knew.

Simon now carrying the heavy cross, Jesus alongside surrounded by the four soldiers before and behind. Verse 33, “And when they came to a place called Golgotha.” That is an Aramaic term translated to Greek and then to English meaning the “place of a skull.” In Luke 23:33, it is called the Skull and uses the word kranion from which we get cranium. And the Latin Vulgate translated that to "Calvary" which was the Latin term for cranium.

This is a place not as some have suggested where skulls are lying everywhere, or it would have been called the place of the skulls, plural. Furthermore, the Jews would not let a lot of bones just lie around, which was intolerable to them. So it was called that way because the area looked like a skull and was shaped like that. Christ was crucified, not so much on top of it as in front of it, right along the road as everybody walking by would be able to see.

And so, when they came to Golgotha, the place of a skull, they began the procedure by verse 34, “offering Him vinegar to drink.” Actually the text in the Greek says wine, "mixed with gall." Now gall simply is a general term referring to something that is bitter. In Mark's gospel, it says the bitter that they gave Him was myrrh. And myrrh is a sort of a vegetable narcotic that was put into the wine as a way to calm the person down.

From the vantage point of the soldiers, that calming down wasn't on their part an act of mercy, they really didn't care whether the victim suffered or not. It made it easier because it was difficult otherwise to hammer four nails through someone's limbs if they weren't stupefied to some degree. But we know from history that it was done by an association of wealthy women in Jerusalem. They provided this from their viewpoint to ease the pain. Verse 34 continues, “but when He tasted it, "He would not drink."

The reason is He Himself said in John 18:11, "Shall I not drink the cup My Father gives Me?" He was going to endure the full pain of everything. Verse 35, "And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots.” There were no dramatics, no cries of pain, it only says they crucified Him. The Bible is not preoccupied with the physical events of the cross. It is preoccupied with the wickedness of men. It does not describe the agony of Jesus. It only describes what men did to Him.

Now in John 19:23-24 it says, “When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took His garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also His tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven into one piece from top to bottom, 24 so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” And it quotes out of Psalm 22:18.

And then verse 36, "Then they sat down and kept watch over Him there." And then a note in verse 37, "And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” If you compare Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, you will get the whole statement, "This is Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews." It was mockery. And Pilate puts it in Aramaic, in Greek and in Latin, the ignorant wicked soldiers.

The world is full of people who just laugh at Jesus and don't know who He really is. But there is a great ending to this. Look at Matthew 27:54, “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!” Luke 23:47 says, "The centurion glorified God and said, this is a righteous man." Let us pray.