04 - The Crucifixion By Pastor Jeff Wickwire Notes

Matthew 27:22-35 "Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said to him, “Let Him be crucified!” 23 Then the governor said, “Why, what evil has He done?” But they cried out all the more, saying, “Let Him be crucified!”

24 When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.”

25 And all the people answered and said, “His blood be on us and on our children.” 26 Then he released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified.

27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. 28 And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him.

29 When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head.

31 And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified. 32 Now as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear His cross.

33 And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull, 34 they gave Him sour[b] wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink. 35 Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots,[c] that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet:

“They divided My garments among them,

And for My clothing they cast lots.”

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For the last three weeks we've been following Jesus's final week on earth prior to His crucifixion.

We've looked at the first Palm Sunday; then the first Lord's Supper in the upper room; and last time we talked about Peter's denial of Christ and his subsequent restoration.

Now today we come to the crucifixion of The Lord Jesus, what we celebrate as "Good Friday."

The crucifixion of Jesus stands at the epicenter of world history.

All of the Old Testament Prophets pointed to this hour.

Isaiah saw Jesus' crucifixion coming and wrote, "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows...He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities....the chastisement necessary for us to acquire peace with God was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one of us, to his own way; and The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53)

David the Psalmist saw clearly the coming Cross of Christ and described the scene in stunning detail:

"My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls; fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in! 13 Like lions they open their jaws against me, roaring and tearing into their prey. 14 My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within me. 15 My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead. 16 My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs; an evil gang closes in on me. They have pierced my hands and feet. 17 I can count all my bones. My enemies stare at me and gloat. 18 They divide my garments among themselves and throw dice for my clothing."

Not only did the Prophets point to this hour, but...

All of the Old Testament sacrifices of thousands of lambs to make atonement for the sins of the people, all the way back to the first animal slain in order to cover Adam and Eve's sin, were types and shadows and signposts pointing to this moment...

Jesus was the ultimate Sacrifice Lamb!

The Old Testament looked forward to Jesus' crucifixion, the New Testament looks back on Jesus' crucifixion.

The Old Testament anticipates the crucifixion...and The New Testament celebrates the crucifixion as the moment Satan was defeated!

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Now, to understand why Jesus had to die on the Cross, we need to hear the message of the Bible concerning the human race...

The Bible says that mankind has a deadly, terminal problem, a disease called SIN...

The Bible describes our condition like this...

Romans 3:10-12 “There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”

And man's dire dilemma required a severe remedy....

The remedy was the Cross of Christ.

LISTEN: Jesus is the only man in all of history who was born to die for us, to take the judgment due us, to erase the charges against us.

On the Cross, several things happened necessary to bring us back to God.

Jesus took our judgment...

We must understand that the God presented in the Bible is a just and righteous God...

GET THIS: He is a MORAL God in that, with Him, there is right and wrong, good and bad, righteous and unrighteous...

And when His laws or commandments are deliberately broken it is called SIN.

And when sin happens in God's universe, it must be JUDGED, there is always a consequence...

ILLUS: There can no more be a SIN without a CONSEQUENCE than there could be a pebble dropped in a pond without the consequent ripples spreading out from it.

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Because God made us in His image, we human beings inherently understand this.

When someone goes speeding at 100 mph down a highway when the speed limit is 55, that breaking of the law demands consequences....it must be judged.

Or worse, where there is a murder, or rape, or stealing, or any other breaking of the law....we know there will be consequences.

And if acceptable sentences aren't carried out in court for these crimes, we cry "This is a miscarriage of justice!"

We react this way because God built into us a conscience that knows that when His laws are broken, consequences must follow.

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So now let's walk this out...

The Bible declares the entire human race guilty----we have all broken His law, have all sinned....

"There is none righteous, no not one...we have all turned aside from Him, we have all gone our own way, there is none who seeks after God..."

So before Jesus came, the entire human race was facing the fierce and certain wrath of God for the chronic, universal breaking of His law!

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If I'm God, and I want to deliver the human race, which I deeply love, from being separated from myself forever....how do I deal with the need for all this sin to be punished?

ANSWER----You choose a SCAPEGOAT, something that takes the punishment, IN PLACE of those who broke the law!

EXPLAIN Scapegoat....

Then read: "Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel...putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness..." (Leviticus 16:21)

As the goat walked away into the wilderness, he symbolically carried away the sins of the people with it.

He took the sins and the consequences onto himself! The sins of the people were imputed to the goat!

And this Old Testament SCAPEGOAT drama was a signpost pointing forward to the Cross of Christ where Jesus would bear our sins and our judgment!

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The moment in time when Jesus did this for us happened when He suddenly cried out from the Cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46)

One commentator writes, "It was not mere bodily anguish that elicited this cry; it arose from some incalculable affliction of soul. He was bearing the sins of the whole world; the Lord had laid on him the iniquity of us all"....

"There was no one to comfort him in his heaviness; and the light of God's countenance was for the time withdrawn from him...that he might bear man's sins in their full and crushing weight..."

So....Jesus bore upon Himself the judgment and wrath that was due us!

This is why Isaiah said, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all..."

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Another thing that happened on the Cross is...

II. All the charges against us were dropped

Satan is called the "accuser of the brethren."

And more than once the Bible reveals Satan going before God to accuse us of all the sins we've committed.

And it is these charges against us that enable the devil to hold us in his grip and ultimately carry us with him into hell...

But listen to the Good News the Bible brings:

"...He (Jesus) erased the charges that were brought against us, along with their obligations that were hostile to us. He took those charges away when he nailed them to the cross" (Col.2:14).

Imagine the devil standing before God with a long list of all the sins you ever committed.

He waves the list in front of God and cried, "Guilty! They are guilty and worthy of hell!"

But then picture the resurrected Jesus, our attorney, our advocate, walking up, yanking the list out of Satan's hand, tearing it up and saying, "All charges dropped because of my shed blood!"

Jesus took our judgment, absolved us of all charges against us, and lastly...

III. He made things right between us and God...

I love the message of the Cross, even its very shape tells us what God did...

It is both horizontal and vertical...

The HORIZONTAL comes first, because it illustrates God's outstretched arms of love....

The horizontal illustrates the outstretched arms of Jesus who said, "Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden with the burden of sin, and I will give you rest..." (Matt. 11:28)

And the horizontal echoes the most famous verse in the Bible, "For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son..." (John 3:16)

And once we've responded to His love by coming to the Cross, the VERTICAL comes into play.

The VERTICAL points up toward heaven...The VERTICAL illustrates how Jesus takes our hand and reaches up placing it into God's hand.

We are made right with God, and the fullness of His love comes down from heaven into our hearts.

On the Cross, 1.)Jesus took our judgment, 2.) Cancelled out the charges against us, and 3.) Brought us back into relationship with God!