The Wrath of Man, Matthew 27:35-44

We are continuing our study of what transpired between the trials of Jesus and his burial. And there are over 30 different stages that are revealed in Scripture. Not all of them are revealed in each of the Gospels, some Gospels record some events, some others, and so what I have done is going through the various parallels or harmonies that are presented, looking at each of these different events and then trying to understand what is going on here. Why have these things been revealed to us, what is their significance?

If you were living in the first century and you read about these trials, about the floggings, about the crucifixions, you would not need much instruction on what those things meant. That is why there's not a lot of detail given in the Scripture. It amazes me as we read through the Scripture how economic the Holy Spirit is in the way He uses words and describes these events. I would think that if this were made up, as many people contend who reject Christianity, and were the product of human imagination, we would find much different accounts. We see this when we look at similar things in the Scripture that are also spoken about through secular sources, and how they have exaggerated and embellished and introduced almost fantastical types of things, and yet when we come to the Scripture—one of the things I believe that gives testimony to its accuracy—you don't find this sort of embellishment, you don't find the fantastic, bizarre mythological type of miracles that are explained; it's just very simple as we study the Scripture.

So we are going to move from the procession of Jesus to the cross and then look at what happens during those first three hours on the cross—from 9 AM until noon—under the category of the wrath of men, as Jesus is experiences mock the not only the crucifixion itself, but also the mocking of the crowd that is there, and others.

In the trials the Roman soldiers scourged Jesus. They beat him with a Roman flagrum. This was usually carried out by the Romans by tying the victim to a post where he is a virtually incapable of escaping or turning or avoiding it. The flagrum had various things woven into the strips of leather, whether rocks or metal or glass, designed to rip open the flesh, expose the muscles, and to produce a lot of bleeding that would lead to the weakening of the victim. Often, a victim would die before he ever got to the cross. Jesus was further mocked and ridiculed, a purple robe was put on him and a crown of thorns; all of this would lead in a sinful human to increased stress.

But what I keep pointing out is our Lord is relaxed. He is able to face this because of his complete and total trust in the Lord. The crowds are hostile to Him crying out to crucify Him, crucify Him, and indeed, the leaders are calling for His crucifixion because He claimed to be the Son of God. The irony of that verse is that they are crucifying Him for who He really and truly is, and their very words attest to the reality that Jesus claimed to be God. He claimed to be the Son of God, and if you are familiar with liberal theology and the theology of the critics of Christianity, they claim Jesus made no such claim; and yet, even his enemies crucified Him for the very reason that He made that particular claim.

They led Jesus out to crucify Him. They conscripted Simon of Cyrene to carry the crossbeam of the cross. In the third stage Jesus stops and talks graciously to the mourners and warns them of the judgment that will come in AD 70, that they should not be weeping for him but for themselves and for their children who would go through that judgment. In the fourth stage they arrived at Golgotha, the place of the skull, also called Calvary, which is just the Latin translation (the place of the skull), and this is where Jesus was crucified; it is marked today by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. There is a competing site. There's only one. For over for 1800 years there was no other view of where the crucifixion took place, and it was and wasn't until Charles Gordon came along in the 1880s and suggested a different site. But he had wrong information because the wall that they thought was the wall around Jerusalem at that time actually wasn't built until after Jesus.

Jesus was given wine with gall, an anesthetic to deaden the pain. He tasted it, according to Matthew, and rejected it. He did not want to be anesthetized in any way as He endured the cross.

Then began with the first three hours, the wrath of man, Matthew 15:24-32; Matthew 27:35-44; Luke 23:33-43; John 19:18-27. I ended the class last week talking about the crucifixion of Jesus. Matthew tells us simply, "Then they crucified him". Mark adds that it was the third hour, 9 in the morning, when they crucified Him. He's using Roman time where the day started at sunrise, and so this is the third hour. I may be wrong on the Roman time, but it starts at 6 am, and so they crucified Him at 9 o'clock in the morning. Now that's important because on this day, which is the first day of Passover on this day on the first day of Passover. This is the time of the morning sacrifice for Passover. So at the same time that they are sacrificing the Passover, the special Passover sacrifice, Jesus is being sacrificed on the cross on Golgotha.

There were four types of crosses that were used by the Romans. At that time the first time was just called a crux simplex and it was just a vertical post with the hands were tied over our nailed over the head of the victim, and then the feet were tied or nailed to the that vertical post. The second type was called the crux decusatta which is named because it resembled the Roman numeral ten (X). These two were typically used in Italy. They were not used outside of Italy in other areas of the Roman empire. The third type is called the crux commissa. It is also referred to as the Tau cross, the Greek T, and this is the most likely form of the cross that was used in the Middle East. Some people have said, well, there's no place therefore for the sign to be posted. But there was plenty of room because as the victim hung from the nails his head would not be blocking it. His head would be lowered as he as he hung there, and they could even nail this a little bit higher. The cross most people think of was called in Latin the crux immisa, which means the inserted cross.

Now when they nailed the victim to the cross, they would nail his feet a certain way. The picture that many of us have seen is where the [……] is sort of flat against the against the cross and overlapped, and then a nail driven through the feet. However in 1968 as a grave was being excavated in Jerusalem, they opened an ossuary and found an ankle bone that had a nail driven through it and there was part of the wood cross still attached to that nail. It was apparently when they drove the nail in, the nail went into a knot in the wood and it was difficult to extract. So when they did extract it they brought some of the wood with it. It is on display or a facsimile of it is on display at the Israel Museum. It was actually buried under rabbinical by rabbinical law in Jerusalem so they could actually keep the human bone without burying it, giving honor to the body. The way in which this was portrayed is in this model the feet were placed on each side of the [……] and then the nail was driven through the ankle bone on each side. So very different from what you may imagine, and it was not painless.

All of this suffering leading up to the cross is not salvific. Think about that, because in Reformed, that is, Calvinist teaching they talk about passive suffering of Jesus and the active suffering of Jesus. They believe that all of the suffering in Jesus life is salvific. However, the Scripture teaches that it is only that time period from 12 noon to 3 pm that the Father turns His back on the Son judicially, when Jesus cries out, as we read in Psalm 22:1, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That is when the judgment is poured out on Christ, when He pays the penalty for our sin. It is during those three hours, as we will see, between 12 noon and 3 pm.

Regarding the hands and there being nailed to the cross, the spike is driven into the wrist just below the hand. Now we need to realize that in both Greek and Hebrew the word for hand in Hebrew are terms that include everything from the hand to the forearm, so it is not a term that is specific to just the hand or the palm. So if you put the nail through the palm because all of these finger bones radiate out from the base, it would easily rip through the skin and the tissue there and would not support the weight of a man. So by putting it at the base of the wrist at the base of the hand that would support the weight.

Following this lifting Jesus up, they would've also had a tablet that was either hung around the victim's neck, or in Jesus' case Scripture says it was nailed to the top of the cross. That would indicate the crime.

Psalm 22:14 depicts this. Jesus is portrayed as saying this in the words of David in the Psalm, "I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me. [15] My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws; And You lay me in the dust of death." That takes us back to the curse of sin in Genesis 3, "From dust you can came, to dust you will return".

Psalm 22:16 For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. [17] I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me;" Dogs is often a pejorative term for Gentiles and the Roman soldiers have surrounded Jesus on the cross.

The "congregation of the wicked [or, band of evildoers] has enclosed me", that is, those who had had rejected him and condemned him to death. "I can count all my bones" because of the flagellation that had taken place. That is stage six states.

Stage seven: they crucified Jesus alongside two others, two criminals, one on each side, with Jesus in the middle, as John states it specifically. Matthew 27:38, says that two robbers were crucified with Him one on the right and another on the left. John says, "They crucified Him, and two others with Him …" He doesn't identify what their crimes were in John. In Matthew and Mark the term LESTES is used of these criminals. It's translated robbers. Actually, the term was used later by Josephus to refer to rebels, to insurrectionists, to those who were in rebellion against Rome.

The other term that is used by Luke is KAKOURGOS [KAKOS = evil; OURGOS = comes from a word for work] simply means an evildoer; it is a more general term. But Matthew and Mark give us a specific that these were probably criminals like Barabbas, probably captured with Barabbas, and were probably his co-rebels. They are being crucified with Jesus. This is a fulfillment of prophecy in Isaiah chapter 53:12, "Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors."

In stage eight, we see the first saying on the cross. Now there was a saying on the way to the cross where Jesus in grace and compassion warned the daughters of Jerusalem, not to mourn for him but to mourn for themselves and for their children who would go through the judgment of AD 70. I want to point this out because what we see here in the midst of all of this torture, in the midst of everything that is transpiring, what we see from the statements of Jesus on the cross, and there are seven statements on the cross, is grace and forgiveness being emphasized—grace on the way to the cross, and here we are told Jesus first statement recorded in Luke, "Father forgive them for they do not know what they do".

There is some question about what Jesus meant by this. Obviously He is stating clearly for the Father to forgive someone. That is, to cancel out this particular sin, which is what forgiveness means, but to whom is Jesus referring? That's where the debate lies. When He says, "Forgive them", to whom does the word them refer? Some say He is talking about the Roman soldiers that are surrounding the cross. That would have been four of them. Or maybe He is talking about the people who have been involved, and generally the people of Israel. Others debate whether or not He would have included Antipas, Pilate, Caiaphas and the other religious leaders. And the issue is, what does He mean when He says, "For they do not know what they do"? And they say, well they clearly understood what they were doing. They rejected Him as Messiah, they rejected His claims to be the Son of God. But this is not talking about were they aware of this kind of information.

I believe that when Jesus says they do not know what they do He is talking in a broader sense that they did not truly understand the significance of what they were doing. They may have crucified Him for saying He was the Son of God. They didn't believe He was the Messiah. They crucified him, but they were completely ignorant of what they were actually doing. So in the ultimate sense they did not know what they were doing. This makes more sense, because in Acts 7:60 in a similar circumstance when Stephen was being stoned he echoed what the Lord said, and as he was about to die, "Lord, do not charge them with this sin". He is talking about the religious leaders who were stoning him to death. And so Jesus is showing demonstrating that His death on the cross has a worldwide application. He is dying for all. He is dying for every sin and paying the penalty for every human being. That doesn't automatically save them because a person has to believe in Jesus as their Savior in order to gain salvation, but the penalty was paid for all. So Jesus is talking to the Father about forgiving them.

This is paralleled the passage would study many times in Colossians 2:12-14, which states that the certificate of debt against us was nailed to the cross. That is where that first category of forgiveness took place, which is the removal of sin. So the sin is no longer the issue. The issue is whether or not a person trusts in Christ, and when a person trusts in Christ they are regenerated, they become spiritually alive, and they receive the imputation of Christ's righteousness and are declared just. The sin penalty is paid for so that that is no longer the issue, but they are still spiritually dead. We are all born into this world spiritually dead, and we do not have spiritual life, and we do not have righteousness. So that even though the penalty has been paid we have not been regenerated, and we have not been given perfect righteousness.

Christ's death on the cross paid the penalty for sin so that God could forgive sin, but in order to have those other two things taken care of we have to trust in Christ. This is why in John 3:18 we read that the one who has not believed in Him is condemned already. Why? Because he is spiritually dead, and he lacks perfect righteousness. So in the eighth stage Jesus forgives them for sin and asks the Father to forgive them for this sin.

In stage nine they put a sign over His head, which is an indictment, which expresses the charge against Him. Matthew 27:37, "And above His head they put up the charge against Him which read, “THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”

There are those will come along and say, well it's different every Gospel so this is a contradiction. They don't contradict each other it's just that they don't necessarily give the whole statement. Matthew is writing to demonstrate that Jesus is the King of the Jews and so he focuses on the core statement of the accusation, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews". Luke says, "This is the king of the Jews". He doesn't identify His name, that's redundant in his view. Marks just states, "the king of the Jews". John states the full statement, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews". So there's no contradiction, it's just that some give a fuller account of what is on the plaque rather than giving the short version.

So they set over His head these charges. John gives us a fuller account of what happens. He says that when Pilate wrote this out and had this accusation put on the cross. And he was doing it, probably to poke fun at and to irritate the religious leaders, not because he believed that but because he knew that if he put that up there it would really aggravate the religious leaders, and that's what happened in verse 20. Many of the Jews read the title. Verse 20 tells us it was written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, so everybody would be able to read it and understand what it said.

In verse 21 we hear their reaction. They went back to Pilate and said don't write King of the Jews, but Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” In other words, that's what you condemned Him for. So that's what he was going to put there and he wasn't going to change it.

The tenth thing that happens, which is fulfillment of prophecy, is that the Roman soldiers divided his garments between them and cast lots. This is described in Mark 15:24, Luke 23:34 and John 19:23-24. Matthew writes it this way, "Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet", quoting from Psalm 22:18, "They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots." This is what is also stated in John 19, that they took His garments and they divided them.

There were four soldiers there and typically what they would do is they would take the clothing of the criminal and they would divide it between them. That would be the upper garment the undergarment, some kind of head covering, the shoes or sandals, and the robe or the outer coat, which with Jesus was a large single piece of cloth, very well made, indicating that it was probably a gift from somebody who was wealthy. And typically the soldiers would cut it into four pieces and split that, but in this case it was of such value they decided that it was be a shame to divide it. So they cast lots for it.

We are reminded of how Jesus was ridiculed, how He was belittled, how He was mocked, He was beaten, all of this, and He was like a lamb before His shearers, yet He opened not His mouth, giving evidence that He was in control. He was there for a purpose. This was why He entered into the world, to die on the cross for our sins as our substitute. And by the way, He was giving evidence that He was who He claimed to be. And the prophecies from the Old Testament are fulfilled specifically and precisely in Him, giving even more evidence that He is the eternal Second Person of the Trinity who entered into human history for the purpose of dying for our sins.

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