Turn back to Matthew 27. The title of this message is
the Gospel of Substitution. We have before us a great picture
of the Gospel of Substitution in Barabbas. and our Lord, the
Lord Jesus Christ. We will see how the guilty sinner
goes free, while the just one is put to death in his place. You know who should have been
hanging between those two thieves? Barabbas. He should have been
hanging there. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Just
One, is hanging there. Turn over to 1 Peter 3. Let me show you this, because
this kept coming up, this Just Person, this Just One. 1 Peter 3. In verse 18, For Christ also
hath once suffered for sins, The just for the unjust. The just one. This is the Holy
One of Israel. This is God manifested in the
flesh. That's who Jesus Christ is. He's
God. He's the just one. And He suffered for sins, the
just for the unjust. Why? That He might bring us to
God. I cannot go before God as I am. And you can't either. God is
holy. We are sinful. God is light. We are darkness. That's what
the Scripture teaches us. That He might bring us to God,
being put to death in the flesh. And He was. We'll see this next
week. Put to death in the flesh, but
quickened by the Spirit. Spirit of God. What a picture. What a picture we have before
us this morning. God has given us very clear pictures
in His Word of the Gospel of Christ, of redemption, of how
God can be a just God and save a wretch like me, a sinner like
me. Now, there, sitting in a Roman
prison, is a notable sinner. A notorious is what that means.
A notorious sinner. He's waiting for execution. That's
what he's waiting for. Barabbas was guilty of murder.
He was guilty of robbery. He was a thief. And he was guilty
of sedition. He's a guilty man. He's been
found guilty. The charges, listen, the charges
are all true. They're all true. And He deserves
what He gets. He deserves what He's waiting
for. As we will see, He gets what
He doesn't deserve. Freedom. Freedom. Now, verse 11, Christ stands
before Pilate to be tried and condemned and be put to death
because the Jews couldn't do that no more. As I told you last
week, two years prior to this, the death penalty was taken away
from them. Only the Roman government could
put anyone to death. So they've got to take him before
Pilate because the Gentiles have to have their hand in his death
as well as the Jews because he's going to save Gentiles as well
as Jews. So they've got to have a hand
in his death. But we're also going to see that
they represent the human race. This is how the human race feels
about God. And we're going to see it. There's
also something else we see here. We see the injustice of man. We see how they trumped up charges. Remember that? They trumped up
charges. They found false witnesses against him. They charged him
with false accusations. The scripture says we hated him
without a cause. He never gave any person on this
earth a cause to hate him, not like him. The scripture says
he went about doing good. That's all he ever did was good.
He's God, so he can only do good. The Lord is good. We saw that
in Psalm 34, the Lord is good. And this is the Lord, the Lord
Jesus Christ, the one He's talking about. He's the one who knew
no sin, no sin of thought, word or deed, no sin in His birth.
He was begotten by the Holy Spirit, that is His human nature, was
begotten by the Holy Spirit, He knew no sin, and we put Him
to death anyway. On God's part, it's the execution
of justice on His Son who's standing in the place of His people. A
multitude of sinners that can't be numbered, the Scripture says. Thank God, I believe that some
of you and myself are in that number. How do I know that? Why do I believe that? Because
I am a sinner and Christ died for sinners. He didn't die for
good people, there's not any. The scripture says there's none
good, no not one. In God's book now, in our book
now, our definition of good is totally different than God's
definition. God's definition of good is perfect. Our definition
of good is if it works. If it works or if it doesn't
destroy or harm, we call it good. But when God calls it good, He
says it must be perfect. He said this, it must be perfect
to be accepted. So what we see here is God's
execution of His justice on the Lamb of God, on the Passover
Lamb. Why? So that sinners might go
free. Now a question is asked him by
Pilate, and this is the only one he answers. And Pilate says,
"'Art thou king of the Jews?' He didn't look like a king. He
looked like a king of the homeless. He looked like a king of nothing.
But he said, are you the king of the Jews? And our Lord answered
and said, thou hast said, or thou sayest rightly, you rightly
said, I am the king of the Jews. Of course, Pilate, in his thinking,
is thinking about just the Jews standing there in front of him,
that nation. When Christ says, yes, I am,
he's talking about the whole elect of God from Genesis to
Revelation, from beginning to end. Because Paul said, he is
not a Jew which is one outwardly, he's a Jew which is one inwardly.
Circumcision is not that which is outwardly, it's that which
is of the heart. And our Lord says, you got that
right, I am the king. Right here stands before Pilate,
king of kings and Lord of lords. Pilate doesn't even know, but
standing before him is his king. I have told you, and you know
this, that we, right now, are under a theocracy. We might live
in a democracy, but we are under the theocracy, we are under the
kingship of Jesus Christ. And absolutely nothing goes on
in this world without His appointment, and His authority, and His direction.
I mean, not down to a fly flying in the air. It's under the control
of Jesus Christ. The king, yes, he says, you said
it right. I am the king. I'm the king. And Pilate there in verses 12
and 13, Pilate marveled after he asked him about the questions,
about the charges of the chief priest and the elders, and Pilate
marveled at his silence. He couldn't believe that he wasn't
defending himself. When someone accuses us of something,
what's the first thing we do? You're crazy. I didn't do that.
We defend ourselves. We break our necks defending
ourselves. Our Lord stood there and never answered a word. Number
one, He didn't owe him an answer. He didn't owe them an answer.
Someone was talking to me the other day about a subject, not
here, someone else somewhere else. And they was asking me
some advice. And I said, you know, our Lord
didn't give an answer to everything that was asked of him. I said,
you don't have to give an answer. You don't have to give an answer
to everything. The Lord answered him not a word. Another thing
too, Job said this, over in Job, he gives no account of any of
his matters. Listen, our Lord did not come
into this world to defend Himself. He came into this world to die.
He came to die. He didn't come into this world
to live. He came to die. He came to take the place of
a multitude of guilty sinners, given Him by the Father to redeem,
And that's what he's doing. That's exactly what he's doing.
This is not a rescue attempt on the human race. This is God
redeeming sinners. God's redeeming sinners. And this is the fulfillment of
Isaiah 53, "...as a sheep before her shears his dumb, so he openeth
not his mouth." Just like you take a sheep and that farmer
starts to shear that sheep, just taking all the wool off of it.
That sheep does not say, what are you doing? The sheep just
is dumb, he doesn't say anything. And that's what it says in Isaiah
53, "...as a sheep before her shears its dung, so He opened
not His mouth." He's fulfilling the Word of God. He's fulfilling
Isaiah 53. And now listen, this is important. "...although He was innocent
of all the false charges, yet they were true." They were
true charges. of all the people he represented,
they were true. And he's standing there as a
substitute, and he's taken those charges. He's taken them. He's going to bow down to them,
and he's going to become guilty. He's going to become guilty. Now it says here in verse 15
through 25, at the feast of the Passover, the governor would
release one prisoner whom they would, this was to pacify them. And they would have a prisoner
and whoever they wanted released, the governor, in order to pacify
them, would release that prisoner. This is gonna be a beautiful
picture here. And there's something we're gonna see here too, also,
in this picture. Not only do we see substitution,
We see free will at its best. People want their free will.
Well, when God gave it to them, what did they do? They chose
a murderer over the Son of God. They chose darkness over light,
is what they did. Now, in verse 16, we have this
notable prisoner, this notorious prisoner, a murderer, a robber,
a worker of sedition, he's a violent criminal, he's worthy of death,
and his name is Barabbas. You know what Barabbas means?
It means son of his father. Does that not fit us? Are we
not just like our father Adam? Are we not just like Adam by
nature? Rebellious? We want our own way. Don't tell me what to do. It's
us by nature. Son of our Father. So look here, in verse 17, Pilate
is trying to figure out how he can release Christ and save faith
with Rome. And you and I will see the sovereign
hand of God in this. He's trying to figure out how
he can Save this just person." He knows he's innocent. He knows
the man's innocent. And he's trying to figure out
how he can release him. And he thinks he has a solution.
Oh, I got one now. He's thinking, I've come up with
one. And so he believes that the multitude
will surely choose Christ, this just one, over Barabbas, a murderer,
a robber, a thief, a troublemaker. But the multitude shows its attitude,
shows its fangs, shows its real colors. And they choose Barabbas. This is a real good picture of
human nature. Given the choice between good and evil, it'll
always choose the evil. Now, if you take a good meal,
if you take a good nutritious meal, and you take ice cream, and you
go to a child, you go to a young kid, and you sit to think, which
do you think they're going to eat? They're going to eat the
ice cream. They don't want that good food.
And that's exactly what human nature does. You sit before human
nature. the goodness of God, the glory
of God, the person of God, or you said a Barabbas, a murderer,
and they'll choose him every time. Choose him every time. I was thinking, why do the women
always go after the bad guys? I had to throw that out. It seems like they're always
going after the bad guys. Anyway, I threw that out. But that's what we do. We do.
We choose darkness over light. We choose evil over good. We
do it every time by nature. We do it. If God leaves us alone,
we do it. Now Pilate knew, in verse 18,
he knew that for envy they had delivered Christ unto him, not
for justice, notice that, not for justice, for envy, jealous,
jealous. You know why they were jealous?
They were jealous of his popularity. They were jealous that, listen,
they were jealous of his freedom. They said, why does your disciples go through the cornfield and
eat corn on the Sabbath day. Why do they do that? We can't
do that. And they were jealous of their
freedom. They were jealous of his power.
He healed the sick. He raised the dead, fed the hungry,
fed 5,000 people plus the women and children with just a loaf
of bread and some few fishes. He fed that many people. How
many do you think he feeds today? Over 7 billion today. Over 7
billion. If he don't, you'll go hungry.
You'll go hungry. So Pilate knew they delivered
him for envy. And he knows this, and he's trying
to figure out what to do. Then his wife comes out. His
wife comes out. God gives her a dream. And here's another vindication
of his perfection, of his holiness. And she says to him, have nothing
to do with that just man. She said, I've suffered many
things this night in a dream. Have nothing to do with this
just man. He's innocent. Don't touch him. Here's another
vindication. Here is an unsolicited witness
justifying Christ. No one can find fault in him.
You think the mob, you think the Roman government, you think
the Jews are really in control of this situation? God Almighty,
God the Father is controlling every aspect of what's going
on. This is the Passover lamb. Jesus
Christ is our Passover. He's the one who's going to die
as a substitute. God Almighty is officiating this
whole thing. The whole thing. Here in verse 20, the religious
leaders, they persuade the mob, listen, I want you to listen
to me here. Be very careful who you follow.
Be extremely careful who you listen to. They persuaded that whole mob
to put the Son of God to death. They're just men. Do you know
that that crowd that's crying, crucify him, was the same crowd
that when he rode into town on that donkey was crying out, Hosanna,
Hosanna. And they were throwing palm leaves
down in front of him and they were praising him and blessing
him. And then turned right around and they're hollering, crucify
him, crucify him. How fickle we are. How fickle we are. We're so shallow. We are so shallow, we're so,
I was telling my grandson, I said, human nature, yesterday, I was
telling him, I said, human nature is so shallow, it can wear floppers
and not get its feet wet. Really, that's how shallow we
are in our thinking. We really are. We're that shallow. Now, Pilate asked him in verse 21,
Which one do you want to be released? He thought they would say Jesus
Christ. Here's an opportunity. Listen.
Here's an opportunity for the human race to justify itself.
And they said Barabbas. What shall I do? He said with
Jesus in verse 22. And they said kill Him, destroy
Him, crucify Him. That's what they want. Do you know that every person
who has ever walked on this earth or whoever shall walk on this
earth will deal with this man Jesus Christ? Every person. I don't have to deal with a lot
of people, but I've got to deal with this one. What shall I do,
he said, with Jesus? And they said crucify him. And he says here in verse 23,
here's another vindication of his person. Why? He says, what
evil has he done? What has he done to deserve being
crucified? That was reserved for the worst
of criminals, to be crucified. He's a just person. Pilate thinks
he's going to wash his hands, and he said, I'm going to wash
my hands of this man, I'm going to have nothing to do with this
innocent man, but I'm going to tell you something, water won't wash
away sin. Only the blood of Christ can wash away sin. Water can't
put it away. It can baptize you 10,000 times
and you'll still be just as sinful as ever. But if the Lord washes
your sins away by His blood that was shed on Calvary's tree, they're
gone. They don't exist no more. And here's something they said,
boy, this is a terrible, terrible, The curse that they said. They
said, let His blood be on us and on our children. The blood
of Jesus Christ can condemn or it can save. He'll do one or
the other. Now, let me just say a few things
here on this matter of substitution and I'll close. I want us to
look at the Gospel message here. First of all, we see God's eternal
purpose in redemption being done. This was purpose before the world
began. Is not Jesus Christ called the Lamb slain before the foundation
of the world? This is God's eternal purpose
being done. Pilate tried to let Him go, but he couldn't do it,
could he? He couldn't do it. He tried every
way in the world to let Him go, but he's not going to let Him
go. This is the Passover Lamb. This
is God's Lamb. He's got to die. The soul that
sinned shall surely die." Now, he's got to die, or I've got
to die. And I mean die eternally. I'm
not talking about just die physically. And the people who just before
cried Hosanna were crying crucify Him. What changed? Well, nothing
changed. They never did like Him. And
no fault could be found in Him, but Pilate still couldn't let
Him go. Our God is sovereign. And His will is always being
done. Never let it come out of our
mouth that God is trying to do His will. God's will is always
done, period. Now, what we have here, secondly,
is the sinner, Barabbas, a notorious sinner, guilty sinner, violent
sinner. And this sinner's been tried, he's been condemned, and
he's waiting in jail for execution. This whole world, listen, this
whole world's guilty before God. That's what Scripture says. The
whole world's under condemnation. All it's doing is waiting on
execution. Even God's children were called,
in Ephesians 2, even His children were called children of wrath
by nature, even as others. We have the same nature. You're looking at a Barabbas.
You're looking at a Barabbas. Everyone whom God saves is a
Barabbas. Son of His Father. Now here it is. Here's substitution. Here it is. In a picture. Barabbas,
he's waiting in jail for execution. He's already been sentenced.
The guards come in. He's scared. He's horrified. He knows he's going to be crucified.
That's a terrible death. And he knows it. And he knows
what's about to happen. And those guards come in. I want
you to notice it. Here comes in the law. The guard represents,
they come in. They walk into that cell. They
take the chains off of him. And they say, you can go free.
And he's like, what? You can go free. I mean, he knows
he's guilty. He knows who he killed, murdered.
He knows who he stole from. I know I'm guilty. I know what
I've done. I know what goes through my mind
and heart. I know my life. I know that. And he knows that. And Barabbas did absolutely zero
to obtain his freedom. He's sitting there waiting to
be executed. And when they come in to get him, he's fully expected
to be executed and they set him free. And it's like, how'd this happen? A man named Jesus was chosen
to die instead of you. That's substitution. The rabbis should have been hanging
between those two things. Instead, Jesus Christ was. I
should have been hanging between those two things. I should suffer the wrath of
God for my sins. Instead, Jesus Christ did. The guilty goes free while the
innocent dies. Now as far as men can see, that's
what happened. If you look on the surface, that's
what happened. But the gospel message is deeper
than that, isn't it? It's a little deeper than that. I'm guilty. I know it. Jesus
Christ knew no sin. He never sinned, never committed
a sin, never thought of sin. He knew no sin. And yet, he's put to death. Now
listen, here's, listen. Justice is not served in an innocent
man dying in my place. The guilty has to die. The guilty
has to die. 2 Corinthians 5.21 For he that
is God the Father hath made him, Jesus Christ, to be sin. He made him sin. What am I? What am I by nature? I am sin. I sin because of what I am. That's like a thief. Stealing
doesn't make him a thief. He steals because he's a thief.
That's his heart. That's what he is. That's just
what he is in his heart. He's a thief. So what's he do?
He steals. Lying doesn't make me a liar. I lie because I am a liar. That's
my heart. That's my makeup. I'm a liar. So what do I do? I lie. I lied. Christ was made sin. Now don't ask me to explain that. That's not explainable. Only
God can make such a transaction. Only God can take what I am and
transfer it to His Son. And when God dealt with His Son
on Calvary's tree, He dealt with a guilty sinner, me. Me. I was put to death in Jesus Christ. And listen, and God is satisfied
with me now. The law has nothing against me.
That lie I told, all those things I've ever done, all those things
I've ever thought, have already been dealt with. And it's over. And all the good that he did,
he believed God perfectly, he loved his neighbor as himself
perfectly, he kept the law, the scripture says, perfectly, every
jot and tittle, his righteousness is mine. It's charged to me,
it's imputed to me, and it's imparted to me in the new birth.
It's mine. That's what's happening here
at Calvary. This is not a rescue attempt. This is not God making
salvation a possibility. This is God saving. He's saving. He's dying for sinners that don't
want Him at all. The law has no claims on an innocent
man, only on the guilty. Look over in Proverbs chapter
17. Now I'm going to wind this down. Proverbs chapter 17. Now listen, in verse 15. He that
justifies the wicked, and he that condemns the just, even
they both are abomination to the Lord. He's got to become
guilty. for God to execute His justice
on him, because if not, that's an abomination before the Lord.
Look over in Genesis chapter 18. In Genesis chapter 18, look in verse
25. Look at verse 24. Verse 23, for you to get the
gist of what's being said. And Abraham drew near and said,
Will thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure
there be fifty righteous within the city. Will thou also destroy
and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?
That be far from thee to do after this manner. This is Abraham
speaking. To slay the righteous with the wicked, and that the
righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee. Shall
not the judge of the earth Shall not the judge of all the earth
do right?" Christ, when He was made to be
sin, took my guilt and died in my place. And Christ, who is
God, cannot fail. He cannot fail. The transaction
is real. This is how God saves sinners. Substitution, taking their place,
satisfaction to God's law. Barabbas, son of the Father,
now he's son of the Heavenly Father. And you know what happens
to all the sons of God? You know what happens to all
them? They go free. They go free. Released. Dismissed all those
charges that was against Barabbas. The books are clear. They're
gone. They're gone. Forgiven, set at liberty. You
know what the Scripture says concerning the children of God? They are forgiven for Christ's
sake. That's why God has forgiven me
of my sins, and you who believe, and all those who are yet to
believe. The reason God forgives us is for Christ's sake. He put
them all away. There's nothing there to condemn
us. There's therefore now no condemnation to them who are
in Christ Jesus. Romans 8.1. That's the gospel. The gospel
of substitution.