Episode 86 Matthew 27:27-56 The death of Jesus

Dan: (00:00)
Hi, everyone. And welcome to training for life redeemed. I’m your host, Dan, as always with my father David Jackson, today, we are continuing to work through the book of Matthew. We are almost done. We’re halfway through chapter 27, dad. The we’ve had Jesus go on his, I’m not going to say trial because we refused to call it a trial really when he was in front of the chief priest and stuff, it’s more of an interrogation that’s happening there so that they then can bring him to trial with a charge against him of, him saying that he’s the king of the Jews, which then means that Pilate needs to kill him. And so Pilate is now handing Jesus over to the soldiers to get ready for his crucifixion. Yeah. And so we’ve got this, mocking happening and then they’re gonna lead him out to the place of skull or Golgotha Dad, why is it important that we actually understand that the soldiers have him, that they’re beating him up, that they’re putting this, you know, really thorny crown on his head and dressing him up in robes and stuff. Like, are they doing this publicly where it can be seen by everyone and it’s kind of a shaming thing or are they doing this privately like in a prison area and it’s yeah, like what’s, what’s the significance here. Yeah.

David: (01:15)
the significance is that the Jews have insulted him spat on him. the Sanhedrin that is have insulted him, spat on him, slapped him in the, punched him in the face, during his interrogation. And they’ve basically bullied the Roman governor into sentencing, handing him over. He actually hasn’t issued a sentence. Pilate never sentenced him, never found him guilty, declared him innocent, but still handed him over to be killed. Yeah. and when you hand somebody over to be killed, the only people who are allowed to do that are the Romans. So Jesus is taken from the hands of the Sanhedrin and the temple police and handed over to the Roman cohort. So now you have the Garrison troops that are in Jerusalem, on full parade handed a replacement prisoner for execution. What I think we forget is Pilate had already scheduled the crucifixion of three terrorists.

Dan: (02:26)
Yep.

David: (02:26)
And Jesus is now going to replace the chief terrorist. So the soldiers are ready to March out and do the, the thing. but now they have a new candidate. So the culture of a Roman army is fairly cruel. and so as we go into the, it looks like the Praetorium here would be Herod’s palace. I say herod’s palace because Herod built this building He was, you know, Herod the great king of all Israel effectively. Mm. And now the Romans have taken over that office and Pontius Pilate occupies that house in the middle of that house. It’s a rectangular palace would be a courtyard and they’ve taken Jesus into that courtyard, and are preparing him with the other two to head off. This mockery and this ridicule and this, everything else is just part of the humiliation and the scourging, is also part of that. It reduces these terrorists to a quivering, mass of misery, and then puts that on parade. And the aim is to intimidate the Jewish population. The extra 50,000 men are in town and say, don’t start any trouble during the festival boys, or you’ll be up there with them. Yeah. So this whole parade is all about making that point. But in terms of God’s plan, the bit that I still marvel at is that if you read Psalm 22 Psalm 69, these guys are following God’s script.

Dan: (04:16)
Yeah.

David: (04:17)
It’s all written down a thousand years earlier. it’s not written down originally for Jesus. It’s written down because that’s David’s experience. And it’s the experience of all of God’s people. We will be surrounded by dogs. We will be and bulls, and they’re all gonna be tearing at us because we are serving Christ the king and not their king. So

Dan: (04:43)
Yeah. So then Jesus is gonna get taken outside of the city cuz we don’t crucify people inside the city.

David: (04:49)
No, that would make the city .

Dan: (04:50)
That’s right. So we go outside the city up onto a little hill, we know, crucify him on a hill that looks like a skull or something like that. It’s called golgotha. And we’re gonna put up the sign that says Jesus is the king of the Judeans. The Judeans not the Jews. Yeah. He’s king of the province of Judea. Yeah.

Dan: (05:12)
Yeah. According to the Roman soldier, according

David: (05:14)
To the Romans cuz that’s their province.

Dan: (05:16)
Yeah. But then later on, if we keep reading, we’re gonna see that the people who are mocking Jesus are gonna say, or you say you were the king of the Israel looking

David: (05:22)
At the whole nation of

Dan: (05:23)
Israel. Yeah. And so there’s clearly a differentiation there where there is, they’ve charged him with being the king of the Jews too. Haven’t they haven’t charged him with claiming to be the king of Israel. Is that right?

David: (05:33)
But they’ve charged him with claiming to be a king and Caesar is the only king. Yeah.

Dan: (05:38)
Okay. So

David: (05:40)
What they’re saying is he is claiming to rule Judea, which means the Roman governor.

Dan: (05:47)
Yeah.

David: (05:48)
So this is treason.

Dan: (05:49)
Even though he is not from Judea in any way. yeah,

David: (05:52)
That is, so this is the, you want a Roman charge to get a Roman governor to order a Roman execution. Yeah. It’s gotta be a Roman crime, but the Messiah is king of Israel.

Dan: (06:03)
So yeah. So these guys are then gonna, well, the Jews who come along are gonna mock Jesus while he is on the cross, we have, mocking happening from various people, including chief priests and stuff who are gonna say stuff about whatever he can save these people, he can’t save himself. whatever Jesus is then going to get to the point where he cries out and says, Eloi Eloi lema Sabachthani I announce that decently well done.

David: (06:30)


Dan: (06:31)
which is essentially quoting the first verse of Psalm 22. Yes. So I remember finding this out and then going back to Psalm 22 and just going, oh my goodness, this is crazy. How do they not hear Jesus saying this line of what is generally a famous Psalm? Like Jew singing Psalms relatively frequently. They should remember that. Right. It’s kind like when you’re listening to your favorite song and you get one line of it and then you automatically singing the rest of it. Yeah. You would expect them to sing the rest and go. All right. Yeah. Okay. Yep. maybe we, maybe this is him, like he’s fulfilling everything that’s in that Psalm as he is quoting it. Yeah. but they think he’s calling Elijah to come and rescue him. Yeah.

David: (07:13)
I think I’m speculating a little bit here that I would’ve expected if Jesus was gonna sing a song on the cross. and let me say Psalm 22, if you’re gonna sing Psalm 22, you want to set it to music like heavy metal. Yeah. It, this is not your standard organ piece. You know, it’s not for the church rock band to play, you know, happy clappy music. This is heavy metal. This is a guy dying in agony screaming. But what’s in what I think is interesting is that he doesn’t quote the Psalm in Hebrew. He’s from Galilee. Galileans speak the language of the Gentiles as well as Hebrew. And he’s chosen in Jerusalem in front of the Bible experts to quote it in Aramaic and they’re listening to a Galilean with a Galilean accent, speak Aramaic, not Hebrew. They know the song in Hebrew. So it did, obviously it didn’t twig with them. That that was the first line of Psalm 22. Yeah. But then when you look at the Psalm, oh my goodness. So if we take this, if we just take that line as it sits there and we don’t look at the Psalm at all. Oh my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You would think God had forsaken him.

Dan: (08:45)
Yeah. And, and it’s what a lot of churches like, you’ll hear it. It’s in lots of songs. Yeah. You know, father turning his face away and you know, God not watching his son die.

David: (08:56)
Yeah. God turns his back and the son’s abandoned and all this sort of language, but Jesus is announcing a song he’s on the cross because he’s obeying the father. This is the father’s will he has the father’s approval for what he’s doing. This is the plan he is in the father’s eyes. A great hero for laying down his life to save the people that God loves and has chosen to save. Yeah. So when he asks this question, he’s not sitting there going, oh, how did I get here? What, you know what God did you forget me? That’s not what he’s doing. He’s doing in many ways. A lot of what Job did. let’s put the question out there. Let’s look at the question so that we start to understand what the answer is. So we read through Psalm 22 and you get, commit yourself to the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him because he delights in him. And the crowd is standing there saying, oh, let’s see if Eli will come down and rescue him. If he delights in him, funnily enough, twice the scribes and the Pharisees say, if he is the son of God and that’s word for word, what Satan said in the temptations. Mm. If you are the son of God.

Dan: (10:21)
Yeah. Throw yourself down and gotta come and rescue with angels and

David: (10:24)
Yeah, they’re echoing their boss. So I mean, then you get lines like, you are the one who brought me forth from the womb. You make me trust on my mother’s breast upon you. I was cast from birth. You’ve been my God from my mother’s womb. I’m poured out like water. My bones are out of joint. My strength is dried up like a pot sherd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth dogs surround me. They pierced my hands and feet.

Dan: (10:53)
Yeah. Dice and they throw cast lots for my clothes.

David: (10:56)
I count. I can count all my bones. Yeah. So when you get to the Lord’s supper, don’t say his body was broken for you. It wasn’t, you know, the bread is broken, but not the body. The body is one. Dogs surround me. They Pierce my hands. It, I count my bones. They divide my garments among them and cast lots from my clothes. I mean, goodness, it’s all there, but here’s the punchline verse 24, Pslam 22. He has not despised. Nor abhorred the afflictions of the afflicted nor has he hidden his face from him. But when he cried to him for help, he Heard

Dan: (11:34)
. Yeah.

David: (11:35)
And the answer to that Cry Psalm 22 on the cross is the resurrection.

Dan: (11:42)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s very important too, with the whole process of what’s happening with Jesus on the cross to understand that this is him taking the wrath of God. Yeah. And so I don’t really see how God’s gonna do that without looking like, if it’s God’s wrath, it’s, God’s judgment that he’s taking. Yeah. And God has to be present for that. Like yeah,

David: (12:05)
You don’t split God, either two parts. This is all of God, all of Jesus dying, according to the, will the father, you know, still empowered by the holy spirit to go through all this, you know, this is a, this is a one God act. and it has the father’s approval. So, and it has the son’s obedience. I mean, it’s, it’s all there. What is it that saves us? What saves us is, that he died. He actually died. And so we have the witnesses there with all the mocking going on, that the witnesses are there that confirm he died. And then we gotta look at who are the witnesses?

Dan: (12:54)
Or they’re girls Mary Madaleine, Mary, the mother of James and John James and John. Yep. And yeah, these are women who have been traveling with Jesus and supporting him the whole way through. And I feel like for Western church history, yeah. We have a very large emphasis on Jesus’ death. Yeah. for the Eastern church, it’s a much larger emphasis on his resurrection.

David: (13:21)
Christos anesti

Dan: (13:23)
Right. and I’m not, I’m like, I just find it interesting that that’s what’s happened. Yeah. But why is it so particularly like, this is Jesus fulfilling, a lot of prophecy, that’s Jesus doing everything, but really like the, the main thing that’s gonna happen. Like the reason why Jesus is triumphant and all this stuff is his resurrection that covers at the end. That’s what brings all the hope and everything and the joyful aspects of what’s going on. And you can’t have that without the death happening, obviously. And

David: (13:51)
It’s interesting in Matthew, in fact, in all the gospels, one of the things that surprised me a little bit is that you notice how casually we are told that he’s crucified. You, you, there’s no description of how many lashes he got or how he bled or, you know, how many times he screamed, this is not,

Dan: (14:12)
It’s not the crucifixion. That’s

David: (14:14)
Something like that. Mell Gibson did it. Yeah. and it was all about the passion, the

Dan: (14:19)
Passion,

David: (14:19)
The passion, passion of the Christ. And it was all, you know, vivid camera work of every bit of skin that came off and all the suffering. And there’s lots of pious meditations on, you know, every wince of pain that went on and we just use our imagination and fill this thing up because we’re obsessed with obscenity. And you notice that Matthew Mark, Luke, they almost just matter of factually just say, yeah, he was crucified.

Dan: (14:47)
Yeah. Anytime there’s any kind of mention of blood and guts and stuff is when they’re checking that he’s dead, ,

David: (14:52)
They’re checking that he’s dead and his, his whole, his bones aren’t broken. Yeah. You

Dan: (14:55)
Know, but we’ve gotta piec him with a spear and see blood and water. We,

David: (14:57)
Yeah. The blood and water is to prove that he’s dead. without the shedding of blood, there is no guarantee that the life has been drained. So we’ve got witnesses that Matthew mentions the women that are standing at a distance. John mentions the women little party that are standing right at the foot of the cross, talking to him as he reaches, speaks down and says, John, look after my mother, that’s a fairly intimate conversation, but there’s also the Roman soldiers. If anybody knows that somebody was dead yeah. These guys have seen enough dead bodies. They’re the ones that shoved the spear in and their reaction is here’s the Jewish authorities. You, you are the son of God. And here’s the Romans who actually killed him saying, yeah, he is.

Dan: (15:48)
Yeah. And that doesn’t just come like Matthew doesn’t even mention the spear I don’t think no, but it comes after Matthew mentions a whole bunch of other stuff. Which people kind of question because it’s only mentioned in Matthew. Yeah. And it’s also extra, powerful, I’d say supernatural in the sense that what normal people would think it’s called, but when you have earth quakes with resurrections, from the dead and all that, but what happened to these people, Dad, they were resurrected from the dead. What happens to them afterwards? Do they then die again? Yeah. Do they go back to just go back and go back? Sleep

David: (16:24)
Lazarus is raised from the dead. Yeah. Couple of weeks earlier, these guys pop out and they are, they are assigned to the community to say you got this wrong. Mm. you have an earthquake, you have two earthquakes. You have darkness for six hours. Anybody with any memory of the Egyptian plagues. Yeah. Any of the prophecies Jesus made about judgment coming.

Dan: (16:52)
Yeah.

David: (16:53)
Any Roman who believed in omens and supertitions

Dan: (16:56)
,

David: (16:56)
They’re all gonna be panicking because this is the central event of history. and the most powerful thing that’s happening here is death is defeated. So we have witnesses that death is defeated, as well as having Jesus rise from the dead. But when he rises, it’s a different body. Mm.

Dan: (17:18)
But we’ll get to that. We’ll get to, we’ll get to resurrection next week. Thank you guys so much for coming and joining us. If you enjoyed the episode, you wanna come and grab the study notes to go along with this episode, head over to trainingforliferedeemed.com/86. If you enjoyed it, hit the, review button and give us five stars. Leave a comment as well. and then hit the subscribe button. So you come and join us again. Next week, when we finish off the rest of chapter 27, we’ve got two more sessions. We do. We do go do his burial resurrection. And then we’ll talk about the great commission as well. Yep.