Divine Mercy for the Blasphemers

How powerful is the cross? So powerful that those who were there at the time blaspheming Jesus in His face were redeemed. And Acts 6, 7 says, many of the priests later came to faith in Christ, they were forgiven. And we'll see that the centurion who was in charge of the execution and some of his soldiers said, this is the Son of God.

They were the worst members of society—murderers, thieves, traitors to their country. Yet one of these two criminals crucified next to Jesus received God's pardon while hanging on his own cross, and the other one didn't. What made the difference? Find out today on Grace to You as John MacArthur continues a study that looks at critical yet often overlooked details from Calvary. It's titled, The Divine Drama of Redemption. Okay, before we get to the lesson, John, you've been saying recently that despite a year of lockdown and a chaotic election, all of this has resulted in blessing in one important area, and that is the church. Maybe you could talk about that for a minute. Well, and I think we never would have predicted that this kind of extreme pandemic with all its lockdowns and other mandates would ever be something you would choose.

But God chooses things in His providence that we would never choose, and He affects things that we would never be able to see if we didn't see them in His hands. So it's been an incredible, incredible journey through this thing for now, well, basically a year. We've been a year into this, and I don't even know how to explain what's happened at Grace Church. It's the most stunning year in the history of Grace Church. There is a new category of human beings at Grace Church called Grace Refugees. People just kept pouring into the church and pouring into the church, and they sort of labeled themselves Grace Refugees because there were no other churches open. And the good part of that is that they found a church where the Word of God is taught and preached and where there is love and there is loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ, and they made new friends. And as a result of that, I think just looking back over maybe the last couple of months, we probably have a thousand new people, and the flow has been nonstop for the full year.

The giving has been greater than any one-year period in the history of Grace Church, and we never took an offering. I know. That's amazing, isn't it? Surprising. It's just very, very surprising. But what has shown up is people love their church.

They love the Word. And when you shut down everything in their world, the church then, because it's there and it's open and it's normal and it's faithful, becomes like a little taste of heaven in the midst of a whole lot of hell that's going on around them. So it's been amazing.

It is that. Yeah, it's been amazing. I have to say, nobody, as I said at the beginning, would strategize this, but it's been the most dynamic thing that ever happened in the history of Grace Church, and I've been there 52 years now. Yeah, last year was a great reminder that God graciously works even in the darkest of times. And friend, you will see that truth vividly in today's lesson as John looks at the miraculous salvation of a blasphemer.

So let's get to it. Here's John MacArthur continuing his series, The Divine Drama of Redemption. Now we are in Mark chapter 15 and I want to read to you verses 22 down through verse 39. Then they brought Him to the place Golgotha which is translated place of a skull. They tried to give Him wine mixed with myrrh but He did not take it and they crucified Him and divided up His garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take. It was the third hour when they crucified Him.

The inscription of the charge against Him read, The King of the Jews. They crucified two robbers with Him, one on His right and one on His left. And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, and He was numbered with transgressors. Those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads and saying, Ha, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests also along with the scribes were mocking Him among themselves and saying, He saved others, He cannot save Himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with Him were also insulting Him.

When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which is translated, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, Behold, He is calling for Elijah. Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave Him a drink saying, Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down. And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

When the centurion who was standing right in front of Him saw the way he breathed His last, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God. As we have learned in our study of the previous portions of Scripture, a stunning, unparalleled, blasphemous farce is being perpetrated on Jesus Christ. He is viewed by the people as a joke, as a ludicrous claimant to being the King, God's King, God's Messiah, God's Son, the chosen one. It is all a joke as far as the Jews are concerned.

It is ridiculous. Thus, starting with the treatment of the Sanhedrin in the trial in Caiaphas' house, Jesus is ridiculed. He is being treated with scorn and mockery and as much cruel disdain as can possibly be imagined or unimagined. And while it was Pilate who was holding the tribunal in which the final verdict was rendered that He would be crucified, it was not Pilate who declared that verdict, it was the people. They said, Crucify Him, crucify Him.

They pronounced the final sentence. Pilate will be culpable for his cowardice and his acts of unrighteousness and injustice. The Roman soldiers who carried on the scorn and the mockery and carried out the parody of Jesus as a King certainly eternally bear the weight of their own scorn. But in John 19, 11, Jesus says that it was the Jews who committed the greatest sin.

It is those who delivered Me into your hands, he says to Pilate, who bear the greatest responsibility. Theirs is the epitome of blasphemy. It is that Sanhedrin that started the entire mocking abuse. It was they who first punched Him, slapped Him and spit in His face and mocked the idea that He could be the Son of God, or the Messiah, or the King. Theirs is the severest apostasy, for they have defected from Holy Scripture. They have defected from the revelation of the Old Testament in which the details of Christ are prophesied so as to make the Christ who did appear recognizable to them for He, in fact, fulfilled all that the prophets anticipated. Let's go back to the text.

The outline that we gave you, just some little points to kind of keep you involved in the process of going through this text. The first was the soldiers' parody. We saw that in verses 16 to 20. Now today we look at the Savior's punishment, first of all, the Savior's punishment. Verse 22, then they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated place of a skull. Why it's called the place of a skull, which is a translation of the Aramaic, we don't know. Some say because it was a place where people died and it was associated with death and skulls are associated with death and people were left on the cross in the blazing sun long after they were dead on occasion and the carrion birds would tear at their flesh and skulls would be revealed.

You can see the connection there. We don't know where the place is. The traditional place is inside the city in modern times. It would have been outside the city then, but it's inside the city in modern times and many churches have built on it. It could be that that is the actual place. The tradition goes back a long way.

It doesn't matter, but it is a historical location known to people which reinforces the reality of this event. Then it says in verse 23, they tried to give Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He did not take it. Matthew 27, 34, in Matthew's parallel account, Matthew says He tasted it and did not take it.

He tasted it and did not take it. What was this for? The combination of the wounding through scourging and the wounding through the nails and then suspending a person who's basically hanging on the wounds and to breathe has to push himself up by his feet or pull himself up by his arm and thereby rub his back up the rough-hewn cross would make the pain so excruciating that there was at least a small dose of human compassion. This would be a mild analgesic, some kind of a sedative, some kind of mild narcotic that could help ease the agonizing pain.

They wanted to mitigate some of the horrendous suffering. And by the way, that fulfills Psalm 69 21 which says that this would be offered to Him, He did not take it. He would drink the cup of the Father's wrath with full awareness, full consciousness. And then verse 24 says this, and they crucified Him.

That's it, no adjectives and no descriptions. And they crucified Him. Much has been written about that.

I've told you just a few things and that's really all you need to know. It was death by asphyxiation because eventually without any kind of relief, without any water, without any kind of protection, with bugs flying in to your eyes and your ears and your mouth and you fighting and wrestling against the wounds, exaggerating the bleeding and unable to finally pull yourself up or push yourself up, the weight of the body drove the lungs to empty and one couldn't breathe and died a horrible death. That was what was intended. Another thing that happened to people who were crucified is indicated in this verse. They divided up His garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take.

Mark just gives us a general reference to that. That's what the soldiers did. That was kind of compensation for having such a very ugly duty to be the execution squad in a really gory, horrific kind of execution. Verse 25 says, it was the third hour when they crucified Him, nine in the morning. Now remember this has happened so fast, hasn't it? It was Thursday night, they were still in the Upper Room and they sang a hymn and they went out and they went to the familiar Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane, owned by a believer in the city where they frequently went and they were there praying, or at least Jesus was praying while the disciples were sleeping. Judas shows up with a huge entourage that could have been as large as a thousand people because they feared reprisals if the Jews knew they were going to arrest the one that they had been hailing all week. They arrest Jesus, Judas discloses himself and that's all sometime in the early hours of Friday morning. He's arrested, He's taken before Annas for an indictment.

They couldn't find one. He's taken before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin for a trial. There's still no crime, but they decide they're going to kill Him anyway. They send Him to Pilate. Pilate sends Him to Herod.

He comes back. There's a mock trial in the daylight to give some legitimacy to it for the Jews. Six different phases of His trial, three with the Jews, three with the Gentiles, all that has happened and they have Him on the cross by nine in the morning. But God is really in charge of all of this because it is in the plan of God that Jesus will die at three, or around three in the afternoon at the very moment when they're slaughtering all the Passover lambs and He will be the one true Lamb. This horrible form of execution was invented, as best we can tell, by Darius the Mede. The Medo-Persian empire conquered the Babylonian empire and history says that Darius crucified three thousand Babylonians. And he's credited with sort of inventing this, or at least doing it on a large scale.

It's a horrific, horrific way to die. Now we've looked at the soldier's parody. We've looked for a moment at the Savior's punishment crucifixion. I want you to look for just a moment, kind of flipping the first letters to Pilate's sarcasm...Pilate's sarcasm.

Now remember, this is being carried off as a farce, a joke. And so, verse 26 says, the inscription of the charge against Him read the King of the Jews. That was not the actual crime. That placard was written by the Romans. That was really not the charge that the Jews wanted over His head. When they first came to Pilate, you remember they had a whole list of possible crimes, perverting the nation. They tried that one and it didn't fly. An evildoer, kind of a generic one.

A rebel. Really leading the Jews to not pay their taxes. And all of that disintegrated in a chaotic cacophony of false witnesses who couldn't get their story right. And what they finally came up with in Caiaphas Hall was blasphemy.

Remember that? Because He claimed to be the Son of God, thus making Himself equal with God. So the real crime, He's a blasphemer and they finally said that to Pilate, He is a blasphemer and by our Law He has to die. They were right, Leviticus 24, 16, blasphemers are deserving of the death penalty. That's what they would have wanted over His head, blasphemer. But Pilate gets his petty revenge and he puts this and drags it out in three languages. This is Jesus of Nazareth, that's a joke in itself because nothing good comes out of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

They hated that. John tells us in John 19, Pilate wrote an inscription, put it on the cross, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, verse 20, therefore many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city and it was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews were...they came to Pilate, they were saying to Pilate, do not write the King of the Jews. You can't have that stated as a fact. But that he said, I am King of the Jews, and then everybody will know it's a joke.

You have to put it as a bizarre profession, not as a fact. Pilate said, these are his famous words, what I have written, I have written. That's Pilate's petty revenge, his way to mock the Jews. He hates the Jews. He's hated them since the day he arrived in town with his banners flying. And he hates them more now and his little petty revenge is to slap on this man's cross, this is the King of the Jews.

He will join the joke himself. We come then to the sneering participants, the soldier's parody, the Savior's punishment, Pilate's sarcasm and then the sneering participants...the sneering participants. I think you have to start really with verse 31, but I want to back it up first. Verse 31 says, the chief priests also along with the scribes were mocking him.

They actually here are mentioned after the others. But in point of fact, they start the mocking. If you read Luke 23 verse 35, it says the rulers were sneering at him. And Matthew 27 41 says the same thing, that the ridicule and the mockery and the sneering was led by the Sanhedrin, they're still at it. They are still doing this that they started hours before in the deep early darkness of night.

They're still in the same mode. And we'll get to them in a minute. Verse 27, however, says they crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. Likely these two robbers were involved in the rebellion that was led by Barabbas and therefore guilty of murder and that's why they were being given the death penalty. There's one on each side.

They are there to add another mocking element to this parody. They put Jesus between two thieves. And may I hasten to say, I don't think His cross was bigger and stood up higher.

That wasn't the point. The point was to say your King is no better than a common criminal. Verse 28 draws back to Isaiah 53 12, the Scripture was fulfilled which says, and He was numbered with transgressors. Some of the manuscripts have that, some don't.

That's why it's in brackets in the NAS. But it's certainly in Isaiah that He would be numbered with the transgressors in His crucifixion and in fact He was. It is a fulfillment of prophecy.

Go down to the end of verse 32 quickly. Those who were crucified with Him, meaning those two thieves, were also insulting Him. So the sneering participants are the thieves to start with.

This is amazing, isn't it? I mean, this has now reached them. These are guys being executed in the same way. We can assume they had been scourged. We can assume they had been nailed. We can assume the same agonies are going on and they join the fun.

That's how this wretchedness is contagious. Those who pass by add another jester. They start wagging their heads. And by the way, Psalm 22, I just read to you says they will do that.

They will wag their heads at Him, shaking their heads, acknowledging that this is all a joke. Out of their mouth He saved others Himself He cannot save. And it's the gesture that cancels out the words to show that it's all scorn, sarcasm and mockery.

And you keep looking for mercy somewhere, but there isn't any. To show you that the gesture was tied to what they were saying, it says, Ha, you who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, sarcasm, save yourself and come down from the cross, that's all mockery. He never said He would destroy the temple. In John 2, 19, He said He would destroy the temple of His body and He would raise it in three days. But they came up with this ridiculous idea that He had said He was going to destroy the temple in three days. They mocked that. Verse 31, in the same way, the chief priests, now they started it and they're still in it, along with the scribes, that's the Sanhedrin again, were mocking Him among themselves and saying, He saved others, He cannot save Himself.

They don't mean that as an affirmation, that's pure sarcasm. He doesn't save anybody. He saved others.

Huh, huh, how about that? Claim to be a Savior, it's all scorn and it's all sarcasm and it's all mockery. Verse 32, let this Christ, say the Sanhedrin members, the King of Israel.

You can see the sarcasm there. They don't believe that. They don't believe anything they said, it's all hypocrisy. Let Him now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe. Would they believe?

Well He did come down. They took Him down, they put Him in a grave three days later, He came out of the grave. Did they believe? When it was reported to them that He rose from the dead, what did they do? Did they believe? No, they bribed the soldiers to lie.

It's all mockery, all of it. They wouldn't believe. If they didn't believe Moses and the prophets, they wouldn't believe that one rose from the dead. This little section ends with a statement we read earlier, those who were crucified with Him were also insulting Him. And that's back to the thieves.

And this is my final point, the sinner's plea. The thieves are in on the joke. In fact, Luke says, one of the thieves said, echoing the Sanhedrin, are you not the Christ, save yourself and us? It's all mockery. They joined in on...they just took whatever was said.

They were parrots. They were caught up in the ridicule, even in the midst of imminent death. But then something very dramatic happened. One of those thieves was literally taken captive by the power of God.

And in a moment, that thief said to the other thief, why are you doing that? This is a righteous man, we're getting what we deserve, this man's done nothing. Then he says, remember me when you come into your kingdom and he affirms a belief in Christ in a belief in Christ's future life on the other side of death and that He's the King and the conversion takes place. And you have in that moment, listen to me, a conversion of a blasphemer. How powerful is the cross? So powerful that those who were there at the time blaspheming Jesus in His face were redeemed.

And Acts 6, 7 says, many of the priests later came to faith in Christ, they were forgiven. And we'll see that the centurion who was in charge of the execution and some of his soldiers said, this is the Son of God and you'll meet them in heaven. The whole purpose of redemption was for God to give to Christ a redeemed humanity, an offspring, people saved out of every generation of history. That was to be God's gift of love to His Son, redeemed people who would spend forever with Him, loving Him, serving Him, pleasing Him, honoring Him, reflecting His glory throughout all eternity. That's the Father's love gift to the Son. In order for the Father to be able to give that gift to the Son, the Son had to bear the punishment for those who make up that gift on the cross. So it pleased the Father to crush the one who pleased Him so that He could forgive the ones who displeased Him, not just for their sake but for the Son's sake so that He could give them to the Son as His eternal inheritance.

And the evidence of the meaning of the cross is there. He became sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, Paul says. Peter says He bore in His own body our sins on the tree. Paul says He took the curse for us.

God punishes Him so that the blasphemers can be forgiven and shows us that with one thief. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. John has titled his brand new series from the Gospel of Mark, The Divine Drama of Redemption. It's a fast-paced, sweeping look at the cross, the resurrection, and the major events that led to our salvation, giving you a fresh perspective on Jesus' final days on earth. Now, friend, I encourage you to go to our website and download this study for free.

It would be a great resource to listen to with your family as you prepare for Resurrection Sunday this weekend. The title to look for? The Divine Drama of Redemption. Contact us today. Visit our website, gty.org. You'll find The Divine Drama of Redemption.

It includes a lot of material that we didn't have time to air on the radio. Again, you can download these messages, MP3s and transcripts free of charge. Just go to gty.org. And when you're at gty.org, make sure you download our Study Bible app if you haven't already. It's free, and it gives you the Word of God in the English Standard, King James, or New American Standard versions along with instant access to thousands of free resources. And for a nominal price, you can get the notes from the MacArthur Study Bible as an in-app purchase, giving you 25,000 detailed explanations to help you grasp the truth of God's Word and see it transform your life. So download the app. It's simply titled The Study Bible when you visit gty.org. That's gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for tuning in today and be here tomorrow as John continues his look at The Divine Drama of Redemption with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.