Well, let's look at Matthew 27,
beginning of verse 27. Now you know this is after Pilate,
Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor over Judea, he had given the
people a choice between a known murderer named Barabbas and this
innocent person, Jesus of Nazareth. And we always make the point
now that On the part of humanity, fallen
humanity, this was nothing more than injustice, gross injustice,
murder, all of that. But also we have the knowledge
from God's word that he was in control all the time, working
all things after the counsel of his own will. and Christ justly
gave himself for the sins of his people before the Father
for our salvation. So we see the good, and I heard
a preacher say this one time, and it's true. The greatest crime
that was ever committed by fallen humanity was turning thumbs down
and crying crucify the Lord Jesus Christ. Because you think about
it, this is the only person who has ever lived on earth who was
totally innocent. Never committed a crime or even
a sin. And yet that greatest crime turned
out to be the greatest hope for God's people because he presented
himself willingly before his father as the surety and the
substitute and the redeemer of all whom the Father had given
him before the foundation of the world. And he justly went
to the cross and died. That's what it took. We're going
to talk about his suffering, but his suffering alone wouldn't
do the job. He had to die. The Bible says
the wages of sin is death. Justice has to be satisfied because
God is a just God. And so when we look at what happened
here, the crowd chose Barabbas and Pilate, he sent Jesus in
his place to be scourged and crucified. You know, there's
a lot of speculation about Barabbas, and that's exactly what it is.
Speculation. There's a lot of people who believe
that Barabbas was eventually saved, brought to faith in Christ. But we don't know that. The scriptures
don't say anything about it. But here's the point I want to
make, and I'll put this in your lesson. When the crowd chose
Barabbas and Christ took his place, basically, that's a good
picture of our own salvation by substitution. Because we are,
by nature, no better than Barabbas. We're sinners. You say, well,
I haven't done the things that Barabbas did, but we're all sinners. We all have no righteousness
by our works. There's none righteous, none
good, no, not one according to God's standard. So don't look
at yourself as, well, I'm deserving more of what Barabbas got, you
know, as far as his relationship with God. So we're all just like
Barabbas. And then Christ, the just, took
our place and was crucified for our sins And of course we know
and we make this point, it was not sins that became his by anything
but imputation. He took our sin dead upon himself,
went to the cross and died for those sins and brought forth
an everlasting righteousness whereby God is just to justify
us. So look at that whole providential
act God, or Pilate bringing Barabbas and Jesus side by side, and the
crowd chose Barabbas. And he went free, and Christ
died. And that's what happens to us
in the court of God's justice. We go free because Christ died
under the wrath of his father. But here in this passage, after
that, look at verse 27. It said, then the soldiers of
the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and that's the
governor's house, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And what they're going to do
is they're going to humiliate him. They're going to whip him,
and you know how that whipping goes. You know the story about
the cat of Ninetale, and they put bones and stones on the end
of it, and they flail the flesh off. And I think, what is it,
they say 39 lashes, you know, 40 minus one, all of that. So
they're gonna scourge him. Now Luke tells us in Luke 23,
verse 22, that Pilate tried to appease the Jews by just scourging
him, whipping him only. rather than crucify him. And
so we read that in order, read here that Pilate, they scourged
him and then they crucified him. But understand now, the scourging
was an emblem of the strokes of divine justice, as I've got
here, which Christ endured in his soul when he was stricken,
smitten, afflicted by the sword of divine justice as the substitute
of his people. So he was whipped. And all this
was according to prophecy. And I've got some citations here. Psalm 129, Isaiah 50 and 53. But this is what's going to happen.
Look at verse 28. It says, and they stripped him
and put on him a scarlet robe. Now they stripped him. The shame
of nakedness. When did that come into the world?
Do you remember? Adam and Eve were created. by
God and they were naked and then they came into the world. This
nakedness that they realized that made them ashamed came into
the world with sin. You can read about that in Genesis
3. Nakedness in the Bible is an emblem of our lack of righteousness
before God. I always look at that story in
the book of Zechariah chapter 3 about Joshua the high priest
standing before God. He had a vision. This was a vision
of the prophet Zechariah. And he was standing before the
judge and he had on filthy rags. And that's like an emblem of
man's works. trying to save ourselves, clothe
ourselves with our works, and all that God sees symbolically,
there's filthy rags. You can see that in Adam and
Eve's fig leaf aprons. They had to cover their, they
were shamed, see? And so what, you remember that
Christ stepped in, or what I call the defense attorney, who's Christ,
he stepped in and said, remove those filthy rags from off of
him. and put on him a new robe. So this is what we're saying
here, nakedness as an emblem of our lack of righteousness,
just like Adam and Eve was naked and they tried to cover themselves
up, their shame, and God showed them, that's not gonna work.
That's not gonna work, Adam. The fig leaf aprons won't do
the thing here, won't make it right. So what did God do? Remember
in Genesis 3, 21, God slew an animal and made them coats of
skin. And in that little emblem, that
little metaphor there, what's he showing? Number one, he established
the sacrificial way of worshiping God right there. You don't come
to God without blood. Remember the Passover, when I
see the blood, I'll pass over you. Abel and Cain, Abel brought
the blood. Cain brought the works of his
hands. He was a farmer, worked hard in the field, probably the
best crop he ever had. But God rejected Cain and accepted
Abel. Why? Preachers will tell you,
well, because Abel was sincere and Cain wasn't. That's not what
the Bible says. God told Cain, he said, if you
do well, you'll be accepted. Well, what is it to do well?
Do what Abel did, bring the blood. And ever since then, the way
to worship God in the Old Testament, before Christ actually came,
was through the symbolic truth that was represented in the blood
of an animal, the blood of a spotless lamb. And I believe that's what
God killed in Genesis 321, slew an animal, it says. I believe
it was a lamb, because Abel brought a lamb. But all the lambs, you
see, what was God teaching? You cannot cover your nakedness,
your shame, your guilt, Your deservedness of death, you cannot
cover that up with the works of your hands. With your decisions
and your sincerity, that won't do it. Blood's got to be shed,
death has to come. Because the soul that sins shall
surely die. And so either we're going to
have to die or somebody who's qualified and appointed and willing
has to die for us. And of course that's Christ,
there's none other. And then they put upon him a scarlet robe.
You know what that pictures? Pictures his blood. The blood
shed for our sins. And all of that, the blood, the
death, that is symbolic of the righteousness of God, which Christ
worked out in his obedience unto death, his suffering unto death,
so that we are justified before God on that just ground, the
imputed righteousness of Christ. And all of that is seen right
here in his suffering. I put in your lesson, having
been made sin by our sins imputed to him, Christ experienced the
shame of nakedness and pain of death, symbolically showing that
he was exposed to the wrath of his father for our sins. And that was it. So here's the
stripped him, they put on the scarlet robe, and look at verse
29. And when they had plaited a crown of thorns, that means
they shoved that crown of thorns on his brow, put it upon his
head, and they put a reed, most commentators say that was a bamboo
reed, in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before him
and mocked him saying, hail, king of the Jews. The crown of
thorns, you've probably seen pictures, people had pictures
of that, had big thorns on it. They put it on his head and it
cut him. I mean, you know, that's a suffering
there too. But the crown of thorns, why
a thorn? Well, you remember how thorns
came about in Genesis 3? That's part of the curse of God
upon this earth, upon man. You know, he's gonna cause thorns
and briars to raise up. And what we see there, that the
thorns are the result of sin and part of God's curse upon
us, therefore Christ being made a curse for us and would remove
that curse by his suffering unto death. And so he wore the emblem
of that curse. And then the reed in his right
hand. And then they bowed the knee and mocked him, hail king
of the Jews. That was a bamboo scepter. Now
Christ, we're told in the Old Testament, the Messiah, would
have a scepter. The scepter would not depart
from Judah until Shiloh come. That was what Jacob said on his
deathbed when he was blessing his son Judah. The kingship,
you see. And it would not be a scepter
of bamboo like a reed shaken in the wind. It would be a golden
scepter, a scepter of righteousness, a scepter of sovereign rule.
All of that is symbolic of this. This bamboo scepter implied that
his claim to the throne and his kingdom was no more than a reed
shaken in the wind. Hail, king of the Jews. But they
didn't realize this, he is the king of kings. The Lord of lords. And his kingdom
is forever. And his scepter is a scepter
of righteousness. You can read about that in Psalm
45. And I put in here in your lesson, you remember Joseph's
brethren? Remember when Joseph had the
dreams that how his brothers would bow down to him? Remember
his brethren, his brother said, shalt thou indeed reign over
us? Genesis 37a. Well, that's what's
happening here. You mean to tell me this carpenter
from Nazareth is gonna reign over us? Hail King of the, they
were mocking. They were mocking. And it's like
people today. They mock the claim of sovereignty
and dominion. God says, I'm the potter, you're
the clay. I'll have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. But men mock him, but it won't
last long. Every knee's gonna bow. Every
tongue's gonna confess that Jesus is Lord, Lord of Lord, King of
kings. What does it say, potentate of
potentates? That means all powerful. We'll
look at verse 30. It says, they spit upon him and
took the reed and smote him on the head. And I put in here,
listen. You remember Isaiah's words in
Isaiah 53, three? Listen to it. He is despised
and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
We did hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and
we esteemed him not. Nowhere do we find the height
of that language, that reality of man's enmity against Christ
than in this, spitting upon the Son of God. The one who gave
him breath, the one who was in control and
smote him, hit him on the head. And that's humiliation for our
Savior. That's what Philippians chapter
two, he was humiliated. He humbled himself. You know,
have you ever been humiliated? I have been, and probably will
be too before now and then. It's no fun, is it? No fun at
all. Whether you think about this
is the person who is God manifest in the flesh, who did nothing
but good, who kept the law perfectly, who never had a thought of sin
or a motive or a goal of sin. The only good person, the good
man. And we spit on him. Hit him on
the head. That's put in here, beat him
on his sacred head. You remember that song, Oh Sacred
Head Now Wounded? That's what it is. And think
about this, I wanted to make sure that we get this point and
never forget it. And we don't, I know that. Why was he going through all
this? If you're a sinner saved by grace,
he was going through that willingly now. I mean, they weren't chaining
him up and forcing him. He went through this for you,
for me. For every sheep, not everybody
without exception now, but for all his sheep. That's why he's
doing this. You mean to tell me he stood
there and let those soldiers spit in his face? Yeah, for me. That's amazing. The Son of God,
the Word that was in the beginning, with God and was God. The word
that was made flesh, the one who healed, fed, the one who
is the truth and had the truth, it was for his people. He endured
this misery, this shame, this torture that he might purchase
for us everlasting life and joy and peace and glory. What do
we get out of this? Think about it. But again, and
I want to hammer this point, this suffering alone could never
satisfy the justice of God. He had to be crucified. He had
to die. He had to obey unto death, even
the death of the cross. And that's what Philippians 2,
eight says, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross. Well, look at verse 31. And after that, they had mocked
him. They took the robe off from him and put his own raiment on
him and led him away to crucify him." Isaiah tells us that he
was led as a lamb to the slaughter. They led him away. Well, where'd
they lead him to? I like this verse in Hebrews. Well, we know
they led him to the cross. They led him, leading him to
Golgotha, the place of a skull. where they're going to crucify
but here's some significance here that we get out of the passage
of scripture in Hebrews 13 12 where the Holy Spirit tells us
he was taken outside the gate and that is outside of Jerusalem
to a hill called Golgotha which was a place of the skull and
I put in here these high-minded religionists did not deem him
worthy to be executed within their holy city, they had to
take him outside. do it outside the gate, outside
the camp is what it says too. And so Isaiah wrote here that man naturally, these people here
including all of us by nature, esteemed him stricken and smitten
of God and afflicted. They called him a blasphemer,
what's so ironic about it is he was truly stricken, smitten
of God and afflicted by the Father not because he was a blasphemer
or ever became a blasphemer, not because he was a sinner or
ever became a sinner or even was made a sinner but totally
and exclusively for our sins imputed to him. All through this,
He was the impeccable God-man who never sinned, never knew
no sin. And we need to realize that,
the impeccable Savior. There's two I put in here. His personal experience with
sin was by two ways. Number one, by imputation. The
sin debt of his people laid to his charge. Number two, by proximity. What do I mean by that? He walked
among and dealt with sinful people without any contamination from
them. He even sat down and ate dinner with publicans and harlots. The kind of people that these
high-minded religionists wouldn't even get near. But he never contracted
any contamination of sin from them, from us. Sin was never
imparted to him, or imbued to him, or any other way. He remained
sinless. But it did please the Lord to
bruise or crush him, because he was the surety, the substitute,
the redeemer of his people, given to him by the Father before the
world began. So here he is, he's led outside
the camp, and it says in Hebrews 13, 12, that he might sanctify
the people with his own blood. That's why he was treated so
harshly. His obedience unto death secured the complete salvation
of all the sinners for whom he died and arose again. And that
satisfied the justice of God fully, completely. And the scripture
says in Hebrews 10, 14, by one offering he hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified. Okay, we'll stop there.