All right, let's read that little
part from Isaiah chapter 53 in verse 8. One question, and who
shall declare his generation? Look at that and let it be embedded
in our mind. Who shall declare his generation? We'll come back to it later.
Now Matthew chapter 12 verse 38 through verse 45 for our reading
of the morning. Then certain of the scribes and
the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from
thee. But he answered and said unto
them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign,
and there shall no sign be given it but the sign of the prophet
Jonas. For as Jonas was three days,
three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the heart or the bowels of the earth. The man in Nineveh shall rise
in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because
they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, a greater
than Jonas is here. The queen of the south shall
rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn
it, for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth, to hear the
wisdom of Solomon, and behold a greater than Solomon is here. When the unclean spirit is gone
out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking rest and finding
none. Then he says, I will return unto
my house from which I came out. And when he is come, he finds
it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goes he and takes with himself
seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter
in and dwell there. And the last of that man is worse
than the first. And hear this, even so shall
it also be unto this wicked generation. Even so shall it also be unto
this wicked generation. Now, our question this morning
concerns Who killed Jesus? That is, who bears the strongest
actual guilt in the death, the crucifixion of our Lord? Back up a little bit. Let me
introduce it by saying this. In order that we might get a
proper handle on the subject today, it is necessary that we
break and throw off the shackles of political correctness and
defy the speech police in our day and society. We must ignore
and press on beyond that criticism that is couched in a call for,
quote, tolerance, unquote, and especially for religious tolerance. And we must refuse the overtures
of those who created the modern altar of diversity and multiculturalism
of today. You know, and I know, that the
call today, again and again, is for tolerance. Can't we all
just get along? Can't we all just find some common
ground and agree on that and walk together? Can't we just
accept people for what they are and for what they believe? I
want to make a point. That is, you watch very carefully
and you listen unto all of this and you will find that those
who are now making the strongest calls for tolerance, that would
be homosexual, progressive, Muslims, Jews, liberals and such like,
are in fact the most intolerant of all of the bunch. All of them
seeking to squelch and to squash Christianity, their belief and
the declaration of it. Now, in this study we are facing
the issue of the ones that killed the Lord Jesus Christ. Who was
it that actually plotted His death? Who was it that demanded
first and foremost that He be put to death? Who was it that
cried out, crucify Him, crucify Him in Matthew chapter 27 and
verse 22. We find it in Luke 23, 21, has
it doubled. Crucify Him! Crucify Him! said certain people. So the question
is, who is charged with the heaviest blame and the heaviest guilt
in the death of our Lord? Whose guilt is greater when it
comes to the death and the crucifixion of our Lord? Let's pose some
questions for our consideration. Who bears the strongest guilt
in the death of our Lord? We ask, first of all, was it
Judas? that betrayed him, and that for
the price of a slave thirty pieces of silver as he colluded with
a Jewish priest to betray the Lord into their hand. Again was
it his followers who forsook him in the hour of his trial
and in the hour of his arrest and were scattered thither and
yon, and cowered behind closed and locked doors while our Lord
was put to death upon the cross? Was it the Sanhedrin court before
whom our Lord was brought, and who in their ignorance and in
their bias condemned him to die as a blasphemer against the things
of God Almighty. Again, we raise the question,
who bears the strongest guilt? Was it Pilate, a man in authority,
the Roman governor? who after declaring the Lord
unworthy of any cause that he could find in Him of death, yet
for the sake of political expediency condemned the Lord to the death
of the cross? Or was it the Roman soldier who
actually took Him, mistreated Him, beat Him, and nailed Him
to the cross and actually put Him to death? all of these violating
every principle of justice that we might imagine, jeering Him,
mocking Him, smiting Him while He were there upon the cross. Surely we can make the case,
as to the first question, there is guilt on the part of all of
these involved and all of these that we have named. And yet,
is it a surprise that Scripture lays the deed squarely at the
feet of the Jew of that generation, time and time again. Scripture blames them for the
death of their Messiah. Humanly speaking, that is, speaking
strictly from the human standpoint, it never would have happened
without their rebellion and without their insistence. At the same
time, we also acknowledge that the providence and the purpose
of God was strictly carried out by the acts of all of those that
were involved in the crucifixion of our Lord. Here are three scriptures
that declare it. We won't read them, simply mention
them. Luke 22, 22. The Son of Man goes
as it was determined. Acts chapter 2 and verse 23. You have taken and by wicked
hand the one delivered by the determinate counsel and for knowledge
of God. And Acts 4 and verse 28. All
that they did unto the Lord was that which had been before determined
that was to be done. Now, we call our present study
this morning, The Ones Who Killed Jesus, or The Generation That
Killed Our Lord. And in working our way toward
that end, let's look first and have a word study of that word
generation. It appears so many times in the
scripture, particularly in the New Testament in regard to that
time and to that generation of Jews living. In working our way,
therefore, Let's get a grip on the meaning of this word so many
times used in the Scripture. We notice in the text we read
here in Matthew 12, the Lord uses the word generation four
times in the few verses that we read. Four times the Lord
uses that word generation. Again, they are in verse 39,
41, 42 and verse 45. Four times our Lord refers to
that word generation. And three of the four times He
uses the qualification or the designation this generation. Three times he refers it to this
generation. And also, twice, in the first
and in the fourth mention, he declares the nature and the character
of that generation that he is describing. For example, in verse
39, it is an evil and adulterous generation, unquote. And again
in verse 45, he speaks of this wicked generation. This wicked
generation. Now at this point, we recall
a short question that we read from Isaiah chapter 53 and verse
8. And who shall declare his generation? Now at this point, our word study
kind of hits a speed bump in the road as we go along. because
there are four or five different views and interpretations of
the meaning of His generation in Isaiah chapter 53 and verse
8 in that great prophecy of Isaiah. Here are some of the views of
that passage, I'll mention them quickly in passage. First of
all, there are those who think that it refers to His divine
generation or His divine incarnation and coming in the flesh of His
human generation. Secondly, there are those that
apply it to His glory after He had been resurrected from the
dead, His ever-living and exalted glory, the unending continuance
of our blessed Lord. Third, there are some who understand
it of His spiritual offspring who can know, who can count the
number brought in by the suffering and the violent death of Messiah
called his generation. And then fourthly, there are
some who prefer to understand it as the time spent serving
in his lifetime on the earth in his age and generation. Much like what is said of David
in Acts 13 and verse 36, that after he had served his own generation
by the will of God, David fell asleep. But I'm inclined to agree
with John Brown, Kyle, and Dalich that it is most often used with
the meaning, those living at one and the same time. Those
contemporary, those that are alive in the same period of time,
are those people that live in a certain age or time. Here's
how John Brown expressed it in his exposition of Isaiah chapter
53 and verse 8. The Messiah's generation It's
just another word for his contemporary, the men of his age, those living
at the same time." You know, even today we hear people say,
we say it ourselves, our generation, my generation. Someone will say,
your generation does this or that. My generation does this
or that or the other. And even if not the case in Isaiah
53 and verse 8, yet in many other places, its meaning is very clearly
those living in a certain period of time. A good example of that
can be found in the Old Testament book of Numbers chapter 32, And
verse 13, and I'm quoting, And the Lord's anger was kindled
against Israel, and He made them to wander in the wilderness forty
years, until all that generation that had done evil in the sight
of the Lord was consumed. Unquote. until all of that particular
generation had died and their bones were bleached in the wilderness. This seems to be the same generation
mentioned in Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 10. I was grieved
with that generation and swore unto them that they would not
enter into my rest. Now, according to the Scripture,
the Jews were always a disobedient and against saying people. Paul
says so, Romans 10 verse 21, probably referring to the passage
in Isaiah chapter 65 and verse 2 through 7. And this was manifested
in almost every generation. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes
1 and 4, one generation passes and another comes along. Now, the generation that left
out of Egypt soon rebelled against Moses. They provoked God in the
wilderness. They despised the manna that
God provided for them. In their hearts they turned back
into Egypt. When they were in Canaan, they
built themselves groves and worshipped idols and false gods and married
them heathen wives and many such like things they did. And of
course, heathendom was even worse, as documented well in Romans
chapter 1. But Israel made a golden cat. They danced about it and they
praised it. They perverted the law of God
and set it aside. They took up the tabernacle of
Molech. They killed and they stoned the
prophets of God, just to mention a few of their sins in the Old
Testament. And in view of their many sins
committed against God, various judgments were visited upon them. I'll just name a few. They're
not that pertinent to our study today. But we remember at one
time the earth literally opened up and swallowed a multitude
of the people. Again, thousands were slain in
the Pestilence at one and the same time when they made the
Golden Keg. in the wilderness. Forty years
they wandered because of that. The Babylonian captivity was
the result of their sin, their rebellion, their perverting and
forgetting the things of God. But now, with that as a backdrop,
we turn to consider the generation to whom the Son of God appeared
in the flesh and ministered among them, which was the chief blessing
ever bestowed upon them as a nation and as a people. greater than
the call of Abraham, greater than the deliverance out of the
land of Egypt, greater than opening up the Red Sea that they might
walk across on dry land, greater than the splitting of the Jordan
that they might enter into the land of Canaan. For God spoke
unto this generation by His very own Son. Hebrews 1 and verse
2, Of old God spoke by the prophet in different way, but he hath
in these last days or time spoken unto us in His Son, the eternal
Son of God, put upon flesh and tabernacled among them. The promise,
the expected, and the hope for Messiah appeared among that particular
generation, the Holy One of God, the hope of Israel, God manifested
in the flesh, one greater than Abraham, greater than Moses,
greater than David and wiser than Solomon. The Father sent
His Son. He sent His only begotten Son. And concerning the flesh, that
Son even came through Israel after the flesh. And many wonderful
things He did for them every day of His life and every day
of His ministry. He dispensed His favor first
and foremost among them, the Jewish people, following that
principle that we read in the Scripture to the Jew first. He went about doing good, Acts
10 and verse 38, everywhere that he went. He did good. He blessed
someone. He relieved them of some misery
or injury or sickness. So the question is, did that
generation receive Him and believe upon Him because He was the Son
of God, because He came down, and because He did many miracles? Did they honor Him? and did they
follow Him? Did they believe upon Him generally
as a people? Did they receive Him as the Holy
One of God and worship Him as such? The answer, of course,
is no. Nay, the religious leaders, the
chief priests, the scribes and the Pharisees, The Sanhedrin
court, the Seventy, led a rebellion against him. And they stirred
up the people constantly and continually against him. They
called him a winebibber. They called him a blasphemer. They called him a man of unsound
mind. They called him an enemy of Moses. They called him a favorer of
publicans and of sinners. And it was they that led the
movement to have the Lord Jesus Christ put to death. And they
even were willing to humble themselves and appeal unto the Romans, whom
they so despised, to have him killed, and using the instrumentality
of the Roman magistrate and the governors to bring about the
death of our Lord. So as to the question, where
does Scripture lay the heaviest blame for the death of our Lord
Jesus Christ. For we read in Acts 4, 26 and
27, quoted from the second psalm, by the way, there we read that
the kings of the earth The rulers gathered together against the
Lord, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and
the people of Israel were gathered together for to do this and that
and so forth. Add to the list the name of the
Jewish rulers or priests, Annas and Caiaphas, and the Sanhedrin,
Now, this is an amazing coalition. But as Gil noted on the passage
here in Acts chapter 4, those that were otherwise enemies against
one another came together as friends, as a coalition, to put
to death our Lord Jesus Christ. And this unwitting coalition,
or rather this unusual coalition, did unwittingly fulfill the Scripture
and advance the purpose and the providence of God. And yet the
truth still stands by the authority of the Scripture that it was
the Jews and especially the leader that set the plot in motion that
ultimately resulted in the anointed one of God being put to death. So the greater fault lay with
them according to the Scripture. Now, in line with this, consider,
if you will, the words of the Lord in a conversation with Pilate
in John 19 and verse 10 and 11. And then a conversation with
Pilate. Pilate telling the Lord that
he, that is, Pilate, had authority to condemn him or to release
him, to sentence him to death or to free him, set him free. That's in verse 10. And notice
how the Lord answers the Roman governor. you have no authority
at all against me unless it were given unto you from above. And please notice the last half
of verse 11. Therefore, He that delivered
me unto you has the greater sin. I'd like to say that again. Therefore,
he that delivered me unto you has the greater sin. Now, does the Lord mean Judas
who betrayed the Lord after seeing evidences of his divinity and
so many wonderful miracles? Or does the Lord refer to the
high priest or to the Sanhedrin or to the collective body of
the Jew? Please consider, as great as
was the sin of Pilate in scourging the Lord and condemning Him to
be crucified to death upon the cross, as great as was his political
posturing his pragmatical handling of the case before him, that
he knew Jesus was not guilty of those things of which the
Jews had accused him. And Pilate even sought an opportunity
to release Jesus. John chapter 19 and verse 12. He was determined to let him
go. Acts 13 and 13. He had already
determined his judgment was to set him free. This man is not
guilty or worthy of death. Yet greater still was the sin
of those who sought to use the Roman government to put Jesus
unto death. For they sinned against light
and knowledge and against their very own Scripture. Let's use
the words of Pilate to see who delivered him, Pilate, who delivered
the Lord. In John 18.35, The Roman governor
says unto the Lord, Am I a Jew? He had asked the Lord, What are
you charged with? Your own nation is the one that
has brought these charges against you. Pilate answers rather indignantly,
Am I a Jew? No. your very own nation. The chief priest hath delivered
you unto me." In other words, he's saying unto them, your accusers
are they of your very own nation. Pilate seems therefore to insinuate
this is a Jewish matter. It is a matter of Jewish law.
Am I a Jew? No. I am a Roman and the highest
authority have accused you from among the Jew and have delivered
you unto my judgment. Now, this gives us a strong hint. Those leading the charge against
the Lord were those that were, shall we say, in authority among
the Jew. The rulers, the chief priests,
the elders, the scribes, and the Pharisees those best acquainted
with the Jewish law and the Jewish religion. And this is verified
by such text as Luke chapter 24, 20, Acts 4, verse 11, You
builders have set at nought the stone and 1 Thessalonians 2,
and 15 that we will look at later in our study. And it again affirms
what we have just noted, that the Jews, according to Scripture,
bear the heaviest blame in the killing of the Prince of Light. Even though they did not actually,
by their very own hands, put Him on the cross. It was not
a Jew, but it was a Roman that sentenced him. and it were Romans
that beat Him and that scourged Him. It was Romans that put nails
in His hand and in His feet upon the cross. It was a Roman that
thrust the spear in His side out of which there came blood
and water. And yet, the first and the greatest
guilt belonged unto the Jew. According to Scripture, we must
ask ourselves the question, How is this true? If you would, let
me illustrate by an example. One person wants another person
killed, but the first does not actually do the killing. It happens all the time. We hear
it almost weekly on the news in our society, and for all kinds
of reasons. for revenge, to gain an inheritance,
to get a nasty divorce, to cover up an affair, to collect life
insurance, to get child custody, to be rid of a business partner.
Whatever it might be, it happens all the time. One wants another
dead, but does not actually himself do the killing. But he uses another
to commit the murder. He murders, as it were, by proxy. But when the investigators and
the prosecutors solve the case and they catch the actual killers,
then they begin to trace it back to the person who hatched out
the plot, the person who hired the hitman, the one who supplied
the weapon, the one who provided the identification, where to
find the victim, where he lived, and all of that. And this one
bears the first and the heaviest guilt and usually gets the stiffest
sentence because he's the hatcher of the plot. Now, with that in
mind, let's consider what the apostle Peter charged upon that
generation of Jews in Acts chapter 20 and verse 23. Him, that is, Jesus of Nazareth,
being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, Him you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified
and slain." Not by their own hands personally, but the lawless
hand of the Romans or the Gentiles, the hands of lawless men. They delivered Him into the hands
of the uncircumcised Gentiles. By the way, the Lord foretold
Himself unto His disciples this very thing in Matthew chapter
20 verse 18 and verse 19. He said to them on an occasion,
Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, the Son of Man shall be betrayed
by the chief priests and the scribes, and unto them shall
they condemn him and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked
and discouraged and to crucify him. The Lord exactly predicted
what would occur to him in Jerusalem. Now, are you aware? Maybe you
are, maybe you're not. Some of you may be aware that
some time back, quite a few years back, that's why some of you
are too young to remember it, one of the popes, and I can't
remember which one it was, but he exonerated the Jew in the
death of the Lord Jesus Christ, saying they were not guilty,
had no part, and were not chargeable in that death. However, Scripture
tells of their part and of their guilt and of their punishment
on account of it. And we best bear in mind, along
with the predictions of his death, there were corresponding predictions
from our Lord and others to be visited upon the Jew for their
rejection and their crucifixion of their Messiah. Now, to reinforce
our case, every time I study this, the proof gets stronger. But to reinforce our case, let's
call some more witnesses to the stand to testify about this. And they're men of honor, men
of truth. and men of integrity, who will
attest by means of the Scripture the guilt of the Jew in the death
of Christ. And let us note something else,
that these men are themselves, without exception, Jews themselves
in the flesh. that these men that are about
to witness to us are themselves Jew and accusing the Jew. First, let us hear from the forerunner
of our Lord Jesus Christ, John the Baptist. Isaiah called him
a voice in the wilderness in Isaiah chapter 40. John the Baptist. Chapter 40, verse 3 of Isaiah. The record you have in Matthew
3, 1 through 12. And in verse 7, John the Baptist
called the Pharisees and the Sadducees, quote, a generation
of vipers, unquote, when he saw them come to his baptism. He refused them baptism and called
them a generation of viper. And he took away their trust
and their confidence in their Abrahamic ancestry, saying unto
them, God is able of these stones. to raise up children unto Abraham. And in verse 10 and verse 12
of Matthew chapter 3, he hints that judgment was at hand. And he does that under two figures. A. An axe laid to the root of
dead and barren trees. And B. A winnowing fan or fork
to separate the shaft and the wheat. Shaft is the useless debris
that is thrashed out in the harvest. The wheat is gathered and is
stored. The shaft is carried and is burned
with an unquenchable fire, a symbol of the wrath and judgment to
come upon them in verse 7 in that chapter. In other words,
the Lord's appearing among the Jew would effect profound division
among them, bringing a sword, setting one against another. And in the end, the end result
would be the loss of their city, of their temple, and of their
nation. Then secondly, and I think the
strongest critic of the scribes and of the Pharisees was the
Lord Jesus Himself. He accused them, exposing their
hypocrisy, and especially in Matthew chapter 23 and Matthew
13, where in verse 1 through 12, He warns the people in Matthew
23 about the scribes and the Pharisees and to watch out for
their hypocrisy. Then in verse 13 and following,
he directly and verbally chastises the same scribes and Pharisees
calling them hypocrites at least seven times in this chapter of
the Scripture, calling them blind guides, blind fools, whited supplicants,
serpents, and a generation of vipers. And in Matthew 23, 29
through verse 36, The Lord made a very dire prediction
about this generation, some eight woes that he called out against
them, that while they pretended reverence for the prophets, and
the men of God, while they distance themselves from the murderers
and acts of their fathers in killing and in stoning the prophet,
yet the Lord says to them, You are the children of them that
kill the prophet. You are the children of the murderers
of the prophet. In other words, like father,
like son. Especially notice Matthew 23
and verse 32. It says this, Fill you up the
measure of your fathers. I think Spurgeon spoke well calling,
verse 32, one of the most terrible sentences that ever fell from
the lips of Christ. For it, in a way, resembles what
the Lord said to Judas. What you do, do quickly. What you are about to do, go
and do it. Even so, you will reap the reward
of this awful deed. Even so, the measure of Israel
was almost full, making them ripe for the judgment of God
according to our Lord. Verse 32 and 33 of that chapter
in Matthew, fill you up the measure of your father, you serpents,
you generation, you offspring of vipers. How can you escape
the damnation of hell? Literally, of Gehenna. Now the
measure of their fathers would fill up when they put Messiah
to death upon the cross. In Matthew 23, verses 34-36,
as a result, upon that generation would come all of the righteous
blood shed upon the earth, beginning with the blood of Abel. And verse 36 is very clear. These things shall come upon
this generation, which of course it did in 70 A.D. And again, to quote from Spurgeon,
once they had Messiah put to death, he said, and I quote,
This crowning sin would fill up the measure of their father's
guilt and would bring down upon them the righteous judgment of
God." And put an end unto Judaism. Now, the Lord spoke a parable
describing this generation to which He appeared. And the parable
is that of the vineyard in Matthew 21-33, through verse 45. A man, an owner of a vineyard,
sent one servant after another to gather the fruits of his vineyard. And the husbandmen killed them,
entreated them ill and beat them and cast them out. At last, the
owner of the vineyard sent his own son. And what did they do? They said, this is the heir.
Let's kill him and the vineyard shall be ours. Therefore, the
Lord applies this unto the Jew of his generation. The kingdom
of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing
forth the fruit thereof. But there are other witnesses
that we ought to hear from. Two of them are men of no great
distinction. Those two own Emmaus Road. And we read about it in Luke
chapter 24 if you care to turn there, and it is in verse 19
and verse 20. Jesus joined Himself to the two,
and the two were discussing the thing that had occurred in recent
days in Jerusalem. And Jesus said unto them, in
verse 19 and 20, He said unto them, What things? And they said
unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet
mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and watch
verse 20, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him
to be condemned to death and have crucified him. Remember
what Peter said twice in the book of Acts, the second chapter. In verse 23, you have taken and
by wicked hand have crucified and slain. He said again in chapter
2 and verse 40, save yourself from this underworld generation. And the apostle in preaching
to Jews charged them again and again with the death of Christ. You'll find it in Acts 3, 13
through 15. You'll find it again in Acts 5, and in verse 30, where he directly
charges that act against them. Turn to Acts chapter 7 and Stephen,
and in verse 51 and verse 52, you will hear Stephen giving
testimony much alike. He's stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in hearts and ears. By the way, I think he's speaking
here to the Sanhedrin court. in heart and ears. You do always
resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers, so do you. Which of
the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? They have slain them
which showed before the coming of the just one, of whom ye have
been now the betrayers and the murderers. of that blessed one. I was surprised this passage
kind of hid from me. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 2,
if you want to turn there, the Apostle Paul said something here
that I guess I hadn't really, really noticed very carefully
on former occasion. But in 1 Thessalonians chapter
2, and it is in verse 13 through verse 16 that we are interested,
Paul tells them that as Gentiles they had been persecuted by their
own countrymen. And look at verse 14. For ye,
brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in
Judea are in Christ Jesus. For ye yourselves also have suffered
like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews. who both killed the Lord Jesus
and their own prophet, and have persecuted us, and they please
not God, and they are contrary to all men." Winding it up by
quickly saying, the circumstances all met together in order to
fulfill the sovereign purpose of our Lord and of our God. And
it is because that God directed all things according unto His
power. Can't we see some of the sins
of our fathers and be honest about them, the consequences
that they have brought? Well, time is up. We'll have
to quit. But another study on the guilt
of those who killed the Lord Jesus and who put Him to death. Much more could be said but we
don't have the time.