Sermon Tone Analysis

*Matthew 27:33--And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull, ‘they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink.

But when He had tasted /it, /He would not drink.

Luke 23:32-33—There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death.

33And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”*

*/1.

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they am doing.”

(Luke 23:34)/* Christ begins His high-priestly intercession even while on the cross.

(Alford) Because He is High Priest, mediating before the Fathers throne, and because every sin is an offense against the Father, He does not declare that He shall forgive, but pleads for the Father to grant the mercy.

It is fitting that His first words on the cross are a plea for the forgiveness of others, for the Son of God was born to provide forgiveness at the cross.

Mark informs us that it was the third hour when He was crucified (15:25).

Pilate was evidently present For as soon as the Lord had been crucified, he had the soldiers affix a sign to the cross which read, as Matthew reports, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”

Luke informs us that the sign was in three languages: Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.

Thus the Gentile ruler unwittingly served the purpose of God to the end, having first crucified the Son of God according to God’s predetermined plan, then declaring by a sign in the three most common languages of Palestine that the man being executed is none other than Jesus, the King of the Jews.

And would God condemn His Son for our transgressions without writing His Name over His head— the very Name which the Father first commanded that Mary must call her son?

“You shall call Him Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.”

This placing of Jesus name and title, over His head, was observed by John before departing from the scene temporarily.

He watched as the sign was fastened, describing that the place was next to a main road through the city.

Jerusalem was crowded with pilgrims, here for several more days for the Passover Feast Many of those passing by stopped in curiosity, wondering who these criminals were and what they had done.

The sign was a surprising one.

It did not seem to reveal the crime of the victim, but was worded more in the manner of a declaration of His identity.

John writes that this annoyed the chief priests, who asked Pilate to change the sign to read, “He said, “I am the king of the Jews.”

Looking upon the scene of hostility, and unwilling to patronize the haters of this man any farther, Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

Adam was pure, naked, and unashamed in Paradise.

The second Adam, in taking all the shame of the first and his children, is also naked.

The nakedness of the first became shame in the fall.

The nakedness of the second restored fallen men, for all of their shame is heaped upon his head.

No sooner was the tortured and naked prisoner hoisted up, that the soldiers divided His garments.

Once again, it is John who provides the most eyewitness detail.

All four Gospels mention that the soldiers cast lots for his clothes, but John adds that they decided not to tear his tunic, since it was skillfully woven from the top down.

This is doubtless the reason that the High Priest was forbidden to tear his clothes, in Lev.

21:10.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke next report that the bystanders mocked and hurled insults at him.

But John was silent about all of this, probably, as Edersheim says, because he had left to find the mother of Jesus.

This makes sense.

First, he had followed Christ from the Sanhedrin to Pilate’s court and then to the cross.

Then, having seen that the Lord was actually crucified, he hurried to find Jesus mother, Mary, in order to bring her to be near her son.

While he was gone, the mocking and sneering reported in the other three gospels occurred, with the soldiers, the chief priests and other rulers, and even the robbers hurling insults at him.

In their words, it is clear that the same Satan who entered the heart of Judas, to inspire him to betray the Christ, Has also taken hold of their hearts, so that they lust after the death of the Son of God.

They are words that are aimed directly at the things which Christ would accomplish for us in His death.

As they heap scorn upon Him, He is indeed completing exactly what Satan sought to bring to an end by provoking them to kill Christ.

Luke tells us that the rulers of the Jews sneered at Him.

 

*Luke 23: /35And the people stood looking on.

But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God”/*

/ /

Ah, but little did they understand that He who saved others had many more yet to save, and that it was only

Through the horror of the cross that He would save their own lives from the horrors of death and hell.

A

grain of wheat must fall into the earth and die before it can produce much wheat.

And the promised son of

Abraham must also perish, and be buried in the earth, if He would bring forth a great harvest of sons of

Abraham.

While the four soldiers who crucified him ate their mid-day lunch and washed it down with sour wine, they who had fixed Pilate’s sign over his head, listened to the mockery of the rulers of the Jews, and added their own insults.

Lifting the flasks of wine which they quaffed, they offered to share with the King who had joined them for their meal.

Their quipping turned as sour as the wine-- ‘4

 

*/3/**/The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, 37and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself”39/*

/ /

How much these are like the words of that one who had tested him in the Judean desert, 3 /‘A /years before, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.”

But it was not in demonstrating His power, but His human weakness, at the cross, that in death He who was born King of the Jews, would reign most sweetly and beautifully as the true majesty that He was and always would be.

Matthew writes that many passed by that place, shaking their heads at Christ’s foolishness.

For it was well-remembered that He had stormed into the Temple only days after being baptized by John, and had caused a great ruckus, overturning tables of moneychangers, and driving out the animals and those who sold them.

“What sign will you do, to show you have the authority to do these things,” they asked Him.

And He replied, “Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it in three days.”

And on this day, 3 years later, they were doing to Him the very thing that He had prophesied to them that they would do.

*Matthew /27:39—And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads “‘and saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself!

If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross./*

*/ ‘“Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save.

If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.

‘3”He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”/*

/ /

And even the robbers themselves, though in the torturous pains of crucifixion, joined together in heaping blasphemous insults upon His head.

*/“Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing./*

/ /

But one of these thieves began to be pricked in His conscience.

He may have been present in the same hall while Christ stood before Pilate, perhaps He saw how Christ spoke to the daughters of Jerusalem who wept for Him as He carried His cross, He heard the first words uttered by the Messiah.

Perhaps his knowledge of the good things this man said and did went back further, He may have been one of those who went curiously to see John the Baptist, and was scorned by the preacher for being a tree that does not bear good fruit.

Certainly, this man must have at least heard the countless stories that were circulating about Christ, and may have even sat down to listen to Him on occasion himself.

In any case, even after reviling the Christ Himself, while gazing upon the Christ, and hearing His one utterance, “Father, forgive them.”

Then the mockery of all around Him. Something happened in the man’s heart.

The Spirit that was in Christ, and with those who were weeping around the cross lifted the veil of darkness from his eyes, and He realized that he was looking upon and mocking the very hope of Israel, the Messiah Himself Suddenly, he knew Him, and in knowing Him, knew that He was also a pure and righteous man, who was not deserving of death, nor of the scorn of those who hated Him.

And that somehow, not even the death of the Messiah, the King, would stop Him from fulfilling the promise of the great Kingdom which was yet to come.

So this thief listened as the other thief went on railing against Christ, speaking the words in

 

*Luke 23: /39Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.”

“‘But the other answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?

41”And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.”

/**/42/**/Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”

And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”/*

/ /

*/2.

And he was saving.

“Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

And He said to him.

“Truly.

I say to you.

today you shall be with me in paradise.”/*

This then was another act of Jehovah, first, causing Pilate to declare that Jesus is the Messiah, the King of Israel, and now, through the mouth of one who had at first scorned Him, now declaring that the dying Messiah would yet come into His glorious Kingdom.

Those who heard must have been struck silent, wondering at the strangeness of the transformation in this man, and the confidence in which He declared his hope.

For none of the gospels mention any further mockery after Jesus equally confident, and kingly, answer: ‘Truly, I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

There are only two other verses in the Holy Scriptures in which this word Paradise is mentioned.

(2 Cor.

12:4; Rev. 2:7) This then, is the second High Priestly and Kingly declaration uttered by the Lord, even as He suffered for the sins of the repentant criminal, He declared to Him God’s pardon.

It would not be the hopeless pain and misery of hell that the thief would find himself in later that day, but the glorious light and peace of heaven above.

It may have been after this saying that John returned with the mother of Christ and three other women.

For John’s absence is indicated by his silence.

He was not a witness to the mockery of Christ.

But now he stands near the cross again, and Jesus, opening His eyes and looking about sees him there, the disciple who loved Christ most, and was most loved by Him, caring for His mother at this hour of great sorrow.

And what a great and strange sorrow for her who had been promised that her son would reign in the throne of David over the house of Israel.

Now to see Him, who had displayed seemingly invincible power, naked and dying helplessly before the very people that he had been born to rule.