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That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. I was thinking back today to my mother. Now we all have, or I should say most of us have fond memories of our mothers. I can't say all because inevitably somebody's gonna come back and unload about all the bad memories and things their mom did wrong, but I have really good memories of my mom.
And the only negative ones I have of my mother is when I did something deserving of her wrath. She was a little lady, as the Scots would say, a wee little lady. She was barely five foot tall, but she could pack a punch.
And I remember that punch. And I learned early not to cross lines with her. But of all the memories I have of her life that are fond, there is a memory that sticks with me that is sweet to me. It was the very end of her life, her last breath. I had the privilege of sitting with my mom on her deathbed.
And I say it's a privilege, it really was. It was a holy moment because the thought came to me, here is this woman who was there, obviously, when I took my first breath. When I came into the world, she brought me into the world. And then I thought, what a privilege to see the tables turned as I hold her hand, she's taking her final breath. And I read a psalm to her. And I said, Mom, you know God really loves you. And she just, she couldn't speak, but she nodded her head.
What a privilege that was, though, for me to be there with her in that moment. The Apostle John wants us to know what a privilege it was for him to stand there at the foot of the cross while his Savior, his Lord, and his personal friend, Jesus Christ, was dying. He takes us there. He takes us to the foot of the cross. He describes the event we call the crucifixion. Whenever Jesus fed people, Christians followed him. When Jesus taught people, preached the gospel to people, hundreds followed him. There were 12, only 12, really close associates with Jesus, and one turned out to be a rat, a deceiver, a traitor. Three of those 12 were his most intimate of friends, Peter, James, and John, an inner circle. They show up at very specific times when Jesus took just them alone. But when it comes to the death of Jesus, only one, only one Apostle is at the foot of the cross, and it's this one, John. There are more women friends of Jesus at the cross than men friends. There are five of his followers there. Four of them are women, one's a guy. Guys are outnumbered.
Can I say? They've always been. It shouldn't be that way. When it comes to the things of Christ, I would love to see more men take an interest than women, but typically, traditionally, ask pastors, do little work in church history, and you will discover when it comes to starting something, volunteering for stuff, you will find a quicker response among women than men. You could chalk it up to a number of reasons, I suppose.
Busyness, but it doesn't need to be that way. We're going to look at the foot of the cross, and we're going to notice the people who were there, but it is John, and none of the others. The others were scared. They had fled, including Peter, who denied the Lord and walked away feeling shameful. But John, the apostle, is there, and he will make note of his presence.
Now as we're getting into chapter 19, I want you to know something. Early church leaders saw a parallel between the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary, and the sacrifice of Isaac on the same mountain thousands of years earlier. They made note of it.
They remarked about it. They saw the parallel. They could see that there was a similarity, that wood was placed on Isaac's shoulder, and he marched toward a mountain called Mount Moriah. And they took note of the fact that God said to Abram, take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to a place where you will sacrifice him. I have noted on several occasions the very first time the word love is used in all of the Bible. It is in that passage, Genesis 22, and it's the love of a father for his son, his only son, as God calls it. Even though Abraham had two boys, God regarded one unique, only begotten son. Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love.
The first time love is used, it's the love of a father for his son as he goes to sacrifice him on a mountain. And the early church leaders noted that parallel. And, well, they should, because, you know the story, Abraham was stopped from plunging the knife. And the revelation came to Abraham, the Lord will provide himself a sacrifice in the mountain of the Lord, it shall be seen. That was a prophecy. The Lord will provide himself a sacrifice.
That's what we're seeing happen in this chapter. The Lord is providing himself a sacrifice. He's providing a sacrifice for himself in the Lord Jesus Christ, but because we know Jesus to be God in human flesh, God is providing himself as the sacrifice.
It is God incarnate. He is the sacrifice. God will provide himself the sacrifice. And then that phrase, in the mountain of the Lord, it shall be seen.
It's interesting, and those leaders noted it, and so should we, that on the very mountain where Isaac was almost sacrificed, Jesus Christ years later was sacrificed. Same mountain, same hill. What mountain was that? Mariah, also called Mount Zion later on. Mount Mariah was settled in the time of David in just a little outcropping of rock known as the City of David.
It was a Jebusite city. If I could stand at the City of David with you now, I would point to the north, because we would see the hill rising to the north. And to the north of us, as the mountain rises, you would see a flat area with a mosque on it today, but 2,000 years ago you would have seen the temple on it.
That's the Temple Mount, 35 acres, and that stone pavement still exists, the Temple Mount. And so you can see the mountain rising to the north, and if I were to take you on top of that Temple Mount and point it north, you would see the mountain still rising. So down at the City of David and down at the Temple Mount, we're not yet on the peak of the mountain yet. The peak of the mountain is just to the north at a place the Hebrews called Golgotha, the place of the skull.
It's the very pinnacle of Mount Mariah. So in Abraham's time, there was no temple, there was no City of David. He would have gone to Mount Mariah and he would have looked at the very top of the mountain and would have moved his son toward the top of the mountain to kill him as a sacrifice to the Lord. The Lord stopped him but said, in the mountain of the Lord it shall be seen.
The lambs were sacrificed down in the temple area, but the lamb was slain on the top on Golgotha. All of that comes into play here. All of that comes into play here, and the fact that the early church made that parallel, they took comfort in the fact that this was all planned. The cross was never an oops or uh-oh moment for God. It was not like, oh no, what do I do now? God never says oops. Aren't you glad that in running the universe, God never on any day goes, uh-oh. Bummer.
What do I do now? Everything is planned. And Jesus knew this was His hour. He has been through the trials of the Sanhedrin, including Caiaphas and Annas, and now He stands before Pontius Pilate, who has already delivered the verdict. Not guilty. Not guilty. But the crowd wants blood.
They're not satisfied. They've made false charges against Him, but they can't substantiate them. Pilate, being a governor and a judge, needs evidence.
He needs a crime committed. And so the trial continues in verse 1 of chapter 19. And so then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, some people think that Jesus was nothing more than a prophet or a good teacher.
These misconceptions existed 2,000 years ago, and Jesus is still misunderstood today. Discover who Jesus really is with Skip Heitzig's riveting nine-part series, Who Is This Jesus?, which examines Christ's humanity and deity to equip you to confidently answer questions about Jesus. This resource, along with Skip's Life Change booklet, designed to help new Christians embrace their transformed life in Christ, is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copies when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. To scourge means to whip. The Romans had a very precise way of meting out punishment on criminals, and one of the ways that they punished a criminal were three different forms of a scourging. Now, a scourge was a whip made out of leather strings or leather thongs, a wooden handle, and attached to the leather were little jagged metal balls and pieces of sheep bone.
On either side of the victim, who would be tied to a pillar so that his back was tight, his skin was tight, the two men who were called lictors would take a whip and each one would have a whip and they would strike diagonal blows on the victim. That's the scourging. But as I mentioned, there were three levels of scourging. The most mild form of scourging was called in Latin the fustagatio.
It was a way of saying, we know what you've done, we're going to let you off the hook, but we're going to rough you up a little bit before we let you go. That was the fustagatio. That's level one.
Level two was called the flagellatio. Now, this was for more serious crimes and it was a brutal punishment. But there was a third, and this is the one Jesus underwent because the third, called the verberatio in Latin, was reserved for capital crimes. It was always associated with capital punishment. It was always associated with the crucifixion.
A prisoner would go through this beating of 40 strikes of the whip, minus one, 39 lashes, one is taken away as an act of mercy. And the purpose of it was two-fold. To weaken the victim so that his death wouldn't last very long. Death by crucifixion could sometimes last four days. So to weaken, to almost kill, and in some cases, it did kill the victim.
But to weaken the victim sufficiently, enormous amount of bloodletting took place. And number two, to get a confession. So those who had the whip would whip and then they would say, first they would say confess in the Latin language, then they would bring down the whip. And then the other would say confess and bring down the whip. Now the idea is eventually if you've done a crime, you spit it out. You confess your crime and at that point they'll ease up on the beating before they kill you. But it was to elicit a confession. Jesus was not guilty.
There was no confession. So he took every one of those stripes. Now the stripes, the beating was quite brutal. In church history there is a man by the name of Eusebius who wrote a book called Ecclesiastical History and he says that the Roman scourging would expose the deep veins and arteries in the back and sometimes the viscera, the organs and the entrails were exposed to sight. So it would leave the back in ribbons of bleeding flesh and then pull apart the muscle down to the organs themselves sometimes.
That's why I say many did not survive it. So when you read that he was scourged, this is what Jesus went through, this brutal beating. And the soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on his head. And they put on him a purple robe. This is a military robe.
There were many in the Antonia fortress. One of the soldiers took another soldier's or perhaps his own robe and put it on him. This will add to the suffering of Jesus later on because as the robe is put on him and the blood soaks through the robe and begins to coagulate, by the time he gets to the place of crucifixion and they rip the robe off of him, it'll open up those wounds afresh. Now a crown of thorns is put upon his head. Now thorns I think are significant. They're emblematic of the curse. After Adam sinned in the garden, God pronounced a curse. He said, cursed is the ground for your sake. Thorns and thistles they will bring forth. So this emblem of the curse put on the one who came to eradicate the curse.
The one who would one day take away the curse of the earth altogether as we all live in a millennial kingdom, a paradise on earth is now taking the punishment for the curse brought upon mankind by sin. And verse three, then they said, hail king of the Jews. And they struck him with their hands. There was a game, a very cruel Roman game played by the soldiers. Keep in mind, Roman soldiers were bored. They gathered in Jerusalem at the Antonia fortress just to put down any riot that might start. So they just sort of sat around all day waiting for action. And if no action came their way, they would create a little. So whenever they got a prisoner, they would take their aggressions out, their boredom out on a prisoner.
And one of the games is called hot hand. They would blindfold the prisoner and they would take turns punching in the face that prisoner. And then telling the prisoner to guess which soldier it was that struck the blow. Now, why this was unusually cruel is because if I were to throw a jab at your face and trust me, I won't do that unless you really bother me. No, I'm just kidding.
I won't do it. But if I were to do that, you would have the advantage of sight. You'd be able to duck, kind of move your body with it and lessen the impact. But when you're blindfolded and you get struck, you get cold cocked without being able to see it, you will take the full brunt of that impact. So they struck him with their hand. They played that cruel game. Pilot then went out again and said to them, behold, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no fault in him.
The second time we read, and there are many times if you put Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John together, there were several times that Pilot was trying to get Jesus off. He knew he was innocent. He has come to a verdict, not guilty.
After the scourging, it's like, okay, let this man go. I find no fault in him. I'm the judge here.
You brought him to me. He's clear. Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, and Pilot said to them, behold the man. It's a very famous phrase. You've read it.
You've heard it. In Latin, ese homo, behold the man. There's an arch in Jerusalem called the ese homo arch. It is believed to be the spot, the area of the Antonia fortress where Pilot brought Jesus out and said these words. When Pilot said, behold the man, this is a cry of pity.
Like, look at this poor creature. I believe Pilot, trying to appeal to their compassion, said, look at him. Isaiah predicted this. Isaiah said that he will be beaten with stripes, for by his stripes we are healed. His visage, his face, Isaiah said, is marred more than any other man and is formed more than the sons of man.
Behold the man. Therefore, when the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out saying, crucify him, crucify him. Pilot said to them, you take him and crucify him, for I find no fault. Third time, Pilot has declared by his own lips, not guilty. The Jews answered him, we have a law, and according to our law, he ought to die because he made himself the son of God.
Now they're showing their hand. Now they're revealing their true motive. They made up charges and they tried to get Jesus killed based on those false charges. They said, he's an insurrectionist.
He commands us to avoid paying taxes to Caesar. Those charges didn't stick because they were false charges. There was no evidence of that. And bringing in false witnesses didn't stick.
So now they're revealing their true motive. We want to kill him because he is a blasphemer. He claims that he is deity.
He claims to be God. Leviticus 24 is the reference. When they say we have a law and our law commands that he die, Leviticus 24 says if there's somebody among you that blasphemes, you are to take him, throw him down, and stone him to death. That was their law. The problem was the Jews had no right to execute anyone. The Romans took that right away.
Capital punishment was removed. Only the Romans could lay down the law, so they bring him to Pilot. They want a guilty verdict, but there's nothing in Roman law that would implicate him, so they say, we have a law. And according to our law, he must die because he made himself the Son of God. Now I want you to think of that phrase, Son of God, for a moment.
I want you to think of it because you may meet someone who will say to you, you know, Jesus never claimed to be God. He only claimed to be the Son of God. The term the Son of God is a term of deity, an expression of being God. I have a son.
He has my DNA. We're two separate beings, but as my son, he is a man like I am a man. The son of a man is a man. The son of a dog is a dog. The son of a shark is a shark.
Same DNA, two separate entities, but same substance. The Son of God is God. It's a term of deity used in the Old Testament and applied to Jesus Christ. And the reason they would kill, they wouldn't kill somebody who says, you know, I'm a child of God. Like everybody else, I'm a child of God. You don't get killed for that.
That's not a capital crime. The reason the Jews wanted to kill him is because he claimed to be equal with God. We read that in the Gospel of John.
We have noted on several occasions. Jesus said to them on one occasion, they tried to pick up stones to kill him. I've done many good works. Which good work do you want to stone me for? And they said, not for a good work, but because you being a man are making yourself out to be God. And they said, that's blasphemy. You claim to be deity. So now they're just cutting down to the core and they're saying, look, according to our law, he needs to die.
Because of blasphemy, he makes himself the Son of God. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program.
Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will help you confidently answer questions about who Jesus is and understand the new life you have as a believer in him. Pastor Skip's nine message series, Who Is This Jesus?, and his life change booklet are our thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your copies when you give $50 or more. Call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash offer. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox?
Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip. Come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast your burdens on his word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.
