036 - Behold the Man. Behold Your King

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, here we are the day after Good Friday, the day before Easter. What are we looking at today? We're looking at the Lamb of God. As John said in his Gospel at the beginning, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

From an up close and personal view of John the Apostle, the crucifixion today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning. We're glad you're with us. I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we continue our stroll in a way through the Gospel of John. We're glad you're with us. And we hope that you're not only learning how to read the Bible for yourself, but you're actually finding God in the pages of these words. And that's why we call this broadcast More Than Ink because this is more than just ink.

These are more than just words on a paper. There's something else that's going on that's much deeper that the Holy Spirit's doing within it. So I hope that's what you're experiencing as we're doing this. And today we are broadcasting on April 3rd, which is the day between Good Friday and Easter in 2021. And here we are in John 19. And today we read about the actual crucifixion of Jesus.

Yeah. And, you know, I've been thinking this week, preparing, reading this passage and preparing for Good Friday's service that what is the significance of the cross? And so there's just one passage that just keeps ringing in my head.

And I'd sort of like to start with this and then we can read John's text. But Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, 18, For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God. A little farther down in the passage in verse 23, he says, we preach Christ, right, Messiah. God sent one crucified to Jews, a stumbling block into Gentiles foolishness. But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. And then he became to us, he says by the end of the chapter, by his doing, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. That just as is written, let him who boasts boast in the Lord. So I've just really been drawn to that, that whole mindset, thinking about the cross this week, that the world just rejects it. It's utter foolishness. What? How can salvation happen by somebody dying in this brutal wicked manner?

It just looks like a tragic train wreck. Yeah, and so as I have been reading this text this week, not just the 1 Corinthians text, but John's text, I've just been so struck by the detail that John lavishes on this event from a very up close and personal point of view. And if you remember he has, well you'll see, he has quite a view point to the crucifixion.

He's there with the mother of Jesus and some other Marys. And like he said as he started off the book, he said I'm writing these things that you'll know. I'm a first hand witness and I'm going to tell you what I saw. So even today and through chapter 19, we will see some aspects of the crucifixion that are not told in the other gospels because of John's perspective.

So that's really very special. But as you mentioned those passages and many others. Oh so many more. There is so much going on at the cross that is more than just the narrative story. And we're going to look at the narrative story today and what John tells us.

But there is gigantic consequence in what we read here and this is not just a tragic train wreck of history. This is the predetermined plan of God. Indeed. You know John's gospel makes a huge point from the very beginning that this is the story of the Lamb of God. The one who was sacrificed for our sin.

And Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, 21, He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So there really is the crux of it. Oh that's a play on words. The crux. There's the cross.

That's Latin for cross. Right there. Yeah.

Yeah. So let's read the story. Let's go into John 19. And I would encourage you before I forget about it. If you get a chance after we read this to read Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 is a fascinating chapter that actually tells this very same story centuries before the crucifixion itself.

And pulls in the import of what's going on. So we'll just leave that there. Write that down somewhere. Isaiah 53 and you'd be shocked at what you see there in parallel to what we're going to read right now. So do you want to start off? Sure.

Chapter 19 verse 1. I have the wrong text in front of me. Here we go. Here we go.

Use the right text. No actually. Yeah. There it is. Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. And they came up to him saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, See, I'm bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, Behold the man. When the chief priests and officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him!

Crucify him! Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and according to that law, he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.

When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from? But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. We better stop there.

I could have stopped halfway back. We left Pilate in the last chapter in 18, trying to tell the people that I find no offense, basically. I find no crime. Well, the crowds had cried out, We want Barabbas instead.

We want a robber and a thief. So now it looks as though Pilate takes the tact of, Well, maybe if I beat Jesus up some. Maybe that will appease the people enough that they'll give up this crazy thing. We don't know if Pilate's really struggling with his conscience about doing the wrong thing here. But when he actually decides that the strategy is to have Jesus flogged and beaten would somehow make his accusers happy.

And yet Pilate himself says, This guy's not guilty of anything. So he's already transgressing any conscience he has because he knows that Jesus doesn't deserve this. But this is his ploy.

This is kind of to give with the crowds what they want. I'll bloody Jesus. And in that process, maybe we don't have to go through the process of the actual killing.

And so that's what he attempts to do. By the way, too, the flogging is not incidental. No, this is a significant beating.

Yeah, it's nearly death inducing. I mean, it's not just a couple stripes across the back of your calves. I mean, this is a really big deal. And on top of that, Jesus predicted, I know in the other three Gospels, he predicted that he would be beaten with stripes. That's there. It's also there in the Isaiah 53 we talked about. So this isn't just, you know, a forced stalling.

This has actually been predicted and this is going to happen. So they take him out and they flog him in an attempt to sway the crowds to not actually have him killed. This is peacemaking. And it's not just the beating. There is the humiliation, right? Because Pilate just turned him over to the Roman soldiers to have their way.

To make fun and to entertain themselves at his expense. And so that's where the crown of thorns and the purple robe come in. They were extravagantly humiliating, this claim of his being king. Yeah, a claim to be a king. Well, let's give you a throne, a crown.

Let's give you a robe. Yeah, exactly. So this humiliation, that's actually one of the things he's doing. And this is not just beating up Jesus, hoping that's enough abuse to satisfy the crowds. But to say, look, you call this guy a king? Look what we've done to him.

Is this your king? So yeah, there's a lot of levels of humiliation going on here. But Pilate, you know, he's trying to be the guy who somehow keeps the peace and figures this might be the path of least resistance. Yeah, and he really had not done a very good job of keeping the peace in Jerusalem.

And he was a fairly brutal governor. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Notice also in verse 6, who's crying out, crucify him. It's the chief priests and the officers of the temple. It's those guys who really were offended by Jesus. It wasn't the larger crowds, the people who, by the way, at the beginning of the week, followed him down the Mount of Olives on that great procession on Palm Sunday.

It wasn't them. It was the chief priests and the officers saying crucify him. And so that's the one to do it.

And then Pilate says, well, if you've got to beef with this guy, will you crucify him? Do that. And another way to kind of get out from under the responsibility, and they say we can't because there's this law. There's this law we have.

We can't do it. So the law, actually Leviticus 24.16 says you must put to death anyone who makes himself out to be God. Right, right. And the death penalty was to be carried out by stoning. And so I would encourage you, if you have a cross-reference in your Bible at this point, go back and read that Leviticus passage and read. That's the law that they're appealing to. But because they were an occupied people, they didn't have the Roman permission to execute their own death penalty. So they had to come to Pilate and request that to be done.

Yeah. And it's a significant prophecy about the crucifixion because normally if someone was going to fake the Old Testament prophecies, they'd say that the Messiah would be stoned. That would be really the expected route. Because that would fulfill Leviticus, the law.

That would be the legal way of doing that. But that's not the case. So here we have this weird anomaly, quote unquote, that he's crucified. And this is what's prefigured.

So that's what happens. Also, it's interesting in verse 8, it says Pilate heard this statement and he was more afraid. What was he more afraid of? He was afraid, yeah. Yeah, he was afraid because they say that he made himself out to be a son of God. So what we're talking about, at this claim right here, Pilate realizes this just isn't a power struggle or a civil dispute.

This is an issue of religion. And of course as a Roman, he would know how the Jews for so long had been so monotheistic and had been so punitive against the Romans polytheistic culture of God. He would know that these guys, when they get a burr under their saddle about religion, this is a serious deal.

It's a serious deal. So when this issue comes up, he claims to be son of God, he has more cause to be concerned because he has track record with the condemnation of the Jews against polytheism. And so when we're talking son of God, they're very serious here. And maybe he's actually even contemplating the fact that maybe the claim might be true. Well, maybe there's something more to this guy than just the civil claims. That's kind of the way I have always read it.

I really hadn't thought of it from that perspective that you just described. The claim of being son of God, he's afraid. Whatever the significance is, it stops Pilate in his tracks. And so he actually schedules another private conversation because of that. He says, let's go back inside.

They go back inside because remember they were inside before so they could have a confidential conversation. And he doesn't ask him straight up like last time. He doesn't ask him, are you the king of the Jews?

This time he should have asked him, so are you the son of God? He doesn't say that. He says, so where did you come from?

Where are you from? Yeah, so he's really trying to substantiate this claim. I mean, he's curious about this.

You know, where we live, we hear this question a lot from the people that we live among. Where do you get your authority from? Right, right. And that really is what Pilate is asking. That's exactly what he's asking. Okay, so what's the deal here?

Because there's something about you that's different. Right. According to your authority, where you come from.

Tell me where you've come from, you know. Yeah, so Pilate presses on his own authority. Don't you know that I have the authority. I have all of Rome behind me.

I can let you go. Right, right. Yeah, and Jesus' non-answer is very interesting.

Isn't it? You know, I mentioned Isaiah 53. You will find in Isaiah 53 that it says that he was silent before he was accused. And here's that part where he's silent. He really doesn't answer.

But then Jesus does answer that. And he says, well, look, you want to talk about authority? You don't have any authority that hasn't been given to you.

And what Pilate is doing is he's kind of flaunting that authority. He's saying, don't you understand I have a power over life and death. Jesus says, buddy, you want to talk about power? You don't know about power. Well, and power over life and death. You think you have it, but you really don't.

Yeah, you really don't. And I think that disturbs Pilate again, too. Because Jesus answers in such a way as to, not so much to impugn his power, but to say you're just a little power guy.

Yeah, or even to try and secure his own freedom. You say, this is not about that at all. This is about sin.

Right, exactly. And that little tag he puts on the end of that one comment about where your authority comes from, he says, look, the one who delivered me to you has the greater sin. And who is he talking about?

Well, we could go for hours speculating who he's talking about. Well, he's talking about the religious authorities, too. Yeah, and people like Caiaphas who represents them. And if you remember back in John 11, 10, John 11, I think it was, Caiaphas was the one who says, look, it's smart for us to kind of sacrifice one guy for the people. For the people instead of the whole people being condemned. So that's the whole push right here, the one who delivered has the greater sin. Interesting that Jesus would go there when he's talking about power and authority. I think these comments really disturbed Pilate.

Well, let's go on. Verse 12, shall I read? Yeah, why don't you read? Okay, so from then on, Pilate sought to release him. He was really disturbed by this conversation. But the Jews cried out, if you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. So you notice they've switched their argument from a religious one to a political one.

Yeah, and they know that he's susceptible to this argument. Verse 13, so when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, sat him down on the judgment seat at the place called the stone pavement in Aramaic, Gabbatha, and now it was the day of preparation of the Passover, it was about the sixth hour, and he said to the Jews, behold your king. They cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king? And the chief priests answered, we have no king but Caesar. And that's where the music goes, dun, dun, dun.

Oh my gosh. Incredible, so he delivered him over to them to be crucified. Okay, so before we double back to anything else in this passage, I just stopped dead there at that point this week. We have no king but Caesar. Here are the religious leaders of the people who from their very inception were identified as a people whose king is their god. Yes, and especially from the mouth of the religious leaders, that's what they should be saying. And here they are saying, we have no king but Caesar. They have completely abandoned their claim to God as their king and are just playing this political card to get rid of this guy. And you know they're actually being prophetic and they don't know it, because they're actually stating the true nature of their heart. If they're not going to recognize Jesus as king, their only king is Caesar. That really is what this whole passage is about.

It is. It's this constant interplay between king, king, king, Caesar, Caesar, Caesar. Who has the authority? Who is king? Is it Messiah, God's anointed one, or is it Caesar?

Right, and I think that's what Pilate's dealing with. Is this guy really a king? Maybe he is. Where do you come from? Why would they claim that you say you're the son of God?

I mean, what's about you? And is there a kingdom going to rise up and a kingdom of soldiers rise up? Are you a threat to us? Yeah, are you a threat? Right, yeah.

So I mean all this stuff is playing. We have no king but Caesar. That line will echo through the millennia. We have no king but Caesar. And indeed, with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords standing in front of them, that is actually true.

That's actually the nature of their heart. Although what they're trying to do is use a political lever on him by saying, you know, we're on Caesar's side. They never were on Caesar's side. I mean, they've been oppressed by Caesar.

This is totally false. I mean, they're just playing the political argument. But they understood. They understood that if one day if they, as the local leaders of the area, went to Rome and complained to Caesar and said, your guy you sent to us, that governor pilot guy, you know, we had this political insurrection, this Jesus who wanted to be king, and he did not put down this guy's, you know, this guy's ambitions, pilot would be out.

He would be out. So pilot knows he's got to act now. I mean, it was a very persuasive argument that he had to act.

The chief priest says we have no king but Caesar. Okay, so before we go on, we cannot skip past the fact that John tells us very specifically now it was the day of preparation for the Passover. Oh, big deal. Yeah.

Right. So I would encourage you who are listening to this, if you haven't done it or you are in the habit of doing it, go back to Exodus 12 and read about God's putting in place the Passover and what it meant. Take your concordance and look Passover and you'll come up with a bunch of Old Testament passages talking about how to observe the Passover and why. And then look at your New Testament passages where there's a bunch of them in the Gospel.

It's just one or two in the letters. But John says very specifically this is the day of preparation for the Passover. That's code. Every Jew understands lambs are about to be slaughtered. Something important is going to be done with the blood. And this is one of the three major holidays that we're commanded to go to Jerusalem to observe. It was not an accident that the crucifixion happened on Passover. And this fits in with John's portrayal of Christ as the Lamb of God. He's just calling that to the forefront again.

Right. John the Baptist's first acclamation when he saw Jesus. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And he's talking about Passover. So the Passover connection here is a strong one. So get up on your Passover and you'll gain huge insight. So let's move on.

You want to read from 17? Okay so well verse 16 he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and he went out bearing his own cross to this place called the place of a skull which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. And there they crucified him.

And with him two others, one on either side and Jesus between them. Pilate wrote an inscription and put it on the cross and it read, Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city.

And it was written in Aramaic, in Latin and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to the Pilate, do not write King of the Jews but rather this man said I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, what I've written I've written. In your face. Well you know Pilate was just done with the whole thing at this point.

He was done with the whole thing. Okay so you know what really caught my attention here this week is John just says this very straightforward, they were crucified with him, two others, one on either side and Jesus between them. Now John doesn't say any more about that but Luke's gospel tells us one of those men believed and one did not believe and Jesus was between them. And one of the other gospels says they both disbelieved at first.

At first. They both cast. So something about those hours on the cross brought one of those men to belief. And so if you're listening to this you know we're always telling you go and read the parallel accounts. So go and find these accounts especially the Luke account which is in chapter 23 of Luke. But go and read the details in the parallel accounts and then think about that. John tells us Jesus the Lamb of God was put to death in between an unbeliever and a believer.

And what might that be? What is God saying to us there? That set me in mind thinking of Romans 5 when Paul says while we were helpless, while we were still sinners, while we still were his enemies, Christ died for us. Right.

Right. Yeah and I've always speculated that the inclusion of two others to crucify with Jesus was meant to really sort of impugn Jesus' reputation. Let's crucify him by himself. No hey let's put him between two robbers. Well Jesus was not the only man ever crucified.

No. But I mean. The Romans crucified thousands of people. It was a way of visually on a billboard style telling people this guy's done as bad as a robber's staff. Right. Yeah so that's part of it. The thing about burying his own cross it made me remember about the sacrifice of Isaac. Oh carrying the wood. If you go back to Genesis 20 something, 22, yeah that he was supposed to be sacrificed. He carried his own wood to the sacrifice.

And so that's not an accidental connection as well. Those things start popping up the more you read scriptures. So and another thing that popped up to me when he carried his cross I remember Jesus telling his apostles how many times? One time I wrote down here in Luke 9 you know if you want to come after me you need to take up your cross daily and follow me and here's Jesus taking up his cross.

I mean when you see it this visually you understand that taking up your cross means taking the burden of the accusations and the shame and the reproof you're going to get from people and eventually going to your own death, your own sacrifice. Yeah it's a one way trip. Right if you want to follow me if you're my disciple this is where I'm going. You set to go the same way? Yeah. Yeah so it's really pretty sobering. Yeah you know so you made reference just a minute ago to Genesis 22 to Abraham and Isaac.

And so I would encourage you listeners to do that. Go back to Genesis 22 and read the account there of Abraham taking his only son. His only son. The son who was born to him from a body as good as dead as Hebrews tells us by the promise of God and heading up the same mountain.

The same mountain. In order to give his life. Yeah this is not an accidental parallel. So no it's not as a matter of fact it's like it's one of those things where you realize that this word comes alive off the page when you see from the very beginning God was laying out this picture of giving his only begotten son to save us. This is a deliberate prefigured planned action of God.

This is not an accident. In fact let me. Peter says that in Acts doesn't he? I was just going to look it up because I think it's really it's so apropos right here in these last seconds to see what he says.

It's in Acts 2 verse 23. Talk amongst yourselves. Okay here we go.

Here we go. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. How are both those things true?

Isn't that amazing? By the foreknowledge and pre-plan of God you crucified him. And those are the bold words of Peter as he stood up before all those people on Pentecost you know seven weeks afterwards and he says you crucified this man but this was a deliberate plan this was a definite plan of God and would never be thwarted.

Wow. Well we're out of time. We'll pick up the second half of Luke 19, John 19. I would encourage you to read Isaiah 53 you'll find a ton of parallels. Yeah and since it's the day before resurrection day this would be a very good time to read Isaiah 53.

Oh it's just incredible. And maybe even Psalm 22. Now Psalm 22 is going to figure real prominently in the passage we're going to talk about next week the actual dying of Jesus but take these hours before you celebrate the resurrection tomorrow morning and contemplate the one who was given for our sin. Yeah exactly and put yourself in the shoes of the people who were pilgrims into Jerusalem during that Passover and they ran across on the road this guy up on the cross as they came into town and they wondered what his crime was and it said on the label above his head King of the Jews and they asked themselves is that a crime? Is that true? Who is this man? And why is he dying? Right and so from that point on people have asked that same question who is this man? And it was Pilate who said I put what I put there King of the Jews. So come with us next week and we'll read the second half of John 19 so I'm Jim and I'm Dorothy and we're glad you're with us this is More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments just go to our website morethanink.org.