Punishment of The Innocent
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Have you ever been treated badly by someone, even feel like you were pushed around by the person? Did you just stand around and take it or did you fight back? It is very difficult to just stand around and be abused by someone and to bite your tongue when you are being wronged. You want to defend yourself especially if you know you are innocent. Well this morning we will look at a man who was innocent and as he is being abused He stayed silent. We will see that the crime done here was not done by the one abused but I know for my own sake I am grateful that He did stay silent.This morning we will look at the Punishment of The Innocent.
We will see this in Luke 22:63-65. As you turn there let me just recap what has happened. Jesus and His disciples went up to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus spent about three hours in fervent prayer agonizing over His coming death. In actuality this is were Jesus' suffering began it was in the Garden. Once His time with the Father was over Jesus was arrested under the cover of night, it was clandestine, done in secret because the religious leaders of the day feared the backlash of the people because many believed Jesus to be the Messiah. So they arrest Him at night and Jesus went peacefully. There was no resistance.
They led Him to the house of the high priest and while Jesus was going through an illegal trial we found Peter, the spokesman for the disciples, was in the courtyard of the high priest. Peter, the one who confessed that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God, now mingles and puts himself in with the world and we found because of his distance from Jesus and placing himself with Jesus' accusers, now instead of confessing his allegiance to his Lord and Master, he denies Him three times. Peter realizes his Lord knows what he has done and Peter runs off weeping bitterly in repentance. Leave His Lord truly alone.
We pick up now in Luke 22:63-65,
Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking Him and beating Him,
and they blindfolded Him and were asking Him, saying, “Prophesy, who is the one who hit You?”
And they were saying many other things against Him, blaspheming.
Luke doesn't present for us all that had happened up to this point. In actuality while Peter was going through his testing Jesus was actually on trial. The thing is this trial was illegal they weren't to have trials at night but the way they religious leaders went around this whole preceding was to actually pass sentence during the day. So this actual event happened before the sentence was legitimately passed.
Punished Unjustly
Punished Unjustly
Jesus was taken into custody by these men who had no proof He had done anything wrong. As He is in custody He goes through what we would call today Police brutality. Look at what His captors do, verse 63 we find that they mock Him and beating Him and it doesn't take a Bible scholar to figure out the beating means they were hitting Him with their fists. Now they had no real cause for this to be done. They had no real evidence it is as though these men just had some anger issues they had to unleash on someone and here was Jesus and here they go.
The author of Proverbs writes this about the unjust.
An unjust man is abominable to the righteous,
And he who is upright in the way is abominable to the wicked.
Notice what this proverb says, the righteous man finds the unjust man to be wicked and the unjust man or the wicked man finds the upright or righteous man to be depraved. They are opposites and they will fight against one another. These men who are holding Jesus captive who are punishing Him find Him to be detestable and for what reason. What did Jesus do. He taught God's Word to people, healed the sick, forgave sins. Wow all things that are deserving of death, right. Well this is why Jesus is on trial, this is why He is being mocked and beaten. It is not because He is breaking any Laws or rules but because He is fulfilling them.
This is true punishment. This is punishment Jesus didn't deserve. Jesus had not broken any Laws, He didn't break any Roman Laws and He didn't break any Jewish Laws either. In fact He came to fulfill the Law of God.
Jesus said this Himself in Matthew 5
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
“For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
“Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus is the true fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. The Law and the Prophets pointed to Jesus and those who held Him captive missed this while they were punishing Him. They missed out on the fact that when they were beating Him the were sticking the face of God in the flesh and they missed out on the fact that when they were mocking Him they were mocking God Himself. The punishment Jesus recieved was brought on by wickedness it was the world being hostile to God.
Just as it says in Romans
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
The mind of these men here in Luke is set on the flesh, they weren't out to please God because what they are doing is contrary to what God desires and what God pleases. They are unjustly punishing an Innocent Man. Even though they are unjustly punishing an Innocent man don't think think for a moment Jesus wasn't in control of the entire situation. Jesus was Punished Willingly
Punished Willingly
Punished Willingly
Look with me again at this passage in Luke.
Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking Him and beating Him,
and they blindfolded Him and were asking Him, saying, “Prophesy, who is the one who hit You?”
And they were saying many other things against Him, blaspheming.
These men mocked and beat Jesus and then as we look at verse 64 we see that they blindfolded Him for the purpose of mocking His divine power. I just want to point out a little bit of irony here, these men who are blinded by the world now blindfold the Omniscient God. One who looks into the hearts of man, the One who has answered the religious leaders murmurs and thoughts before a word was spoke by them now these men are blindfolding Jesus. They want Him to perform His supernatural abilities which they aren't even believing.
Still through these Jesus can obviously proof who He is and He has the power with just His word to do so but He stays silent. Jesus in taking this abuse proves something more powerful then those men are giving Him credit for. He is proving that He is submissive to the Father. He is willingly being punished.
Here is another irony, these men are asking Jesus to prophecy who hit Him well Jesus has already prophesied this event would happen.
But He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone,
saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”
Here is Jesus being rejected by the elders and chief priests and the scribes. Later Jesus reiterates this when He tells His disciples in Luke 17;
“But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
So Jesus must suffer, He knew He would and He did it willingly. This had to happen Jesus had to be obedient to God the Father.
First Isaiah pointed to this in Isaiah 50;
The Lord GOD has opened My ear;
And I was not disobedient
Nor did I turn back.
I gave My back to those who strike Me,
And My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard;
I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting.
This is Isaiah pointing to the fact that Jesus would undergo this exact event. It was a prophecy Isaiah had made and here it is coming true. This was an act of Jesus being obedient to God the Father and the author of Hebrews gives us more insight into this also.
The author of Hebrews explains this.
So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him,
“YOU ARE MY SON,
TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU”;
just as He says also in another passage,
“YOU ARE A PRIEST FOREVER
ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK.”
In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.
Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.
And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,
being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
Jesus had to be obedient to the point of death, He had to endure this punishment. Could He have fought no, in actuality He couldn't have because this was God's will. Did He have the power to stop this, yes, because He is God. Sometimes just because you have the power or the ability to do something doesn't necessarily mean you have to fight, it is more beneficial to do the will of God then to do what we think is right and within our power.
The thing is Jesus didn't go through this punishment just because He wanted to show us His ability to withstand a beating by these men. He went through it for a greater purpose, He took the punishment in our place.
Punished in our Place
Punished in our Place
Jesus is standing in as a representative of all mankind. We deserve to be punished for our sins. In fact we can all place ourselves in the sandals of these men who are standing there beating Jesus ruthlessly. We are born wicked and we are just as responsible for Jesus being mistreated as those standing there preforming the abuse. We are all sinners. Jesus is innocent and as harsh as it seems to read this it is because of us that Jesus is going through it.
He is being punished for our sake, it is to benefit us. Paul paints this picture very well in Romans 5:12-21.
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—
for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.
For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.
The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus had to endure this, He had to endure the brutality of man's sinfulness all of the brutality all so that He could take our place. He had to endure the ridicule and the physical abuse and He did this all silently for you and for me. What a glorious and gracious God we have. Jesus is the Living Word who silent so that He can bring about Life.