Mark 15, one, and straightway
in the morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the
elders and scribes and the whole council and bound Jesus and carried
him away and delivered him to Pilate. And Pilate asked him,
are you the king of the Jews? And he answering said unto him,
Thou sayest it. And the chief priests accused
him of many things, but he answered nothing. And Pilate asked him again, saying,
Answerest thou nothing? Behold, how many things they
witness against thee? But Jesus yet answered nothing. So that Pilate marveled. Pontius Pilate sat upon the seat
of judgment. This place where Pilate sat and
the Lord stood is called the Judgment Hall in John 18, 33.
It says there, then Pilate entered
into the Judgment Hall again and called Jesus and said unto
him, are you the king of the Jews? the judgment hall. And the Lord of glory stood there
before Pilate in the judgment hall to be judged of a man. So we have in our text the judge and the accused. But which is
which? Romans 14.10 says, why do you
judge your brother or why do you set it not your brother for
we all shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ? Not long after this scene that
we see here in our text, where Pilate is sitting on the
judgment seat, and the Lord is standing before him. Not long
after that, these roles were completely reversed. And our Lord Jesus Christ sat
upon the judgment seat and Pilate, as will you and I and everyone
else, stood in his presence. And even then, even now on this
day, As Pilate sits on that seat and the Lord stands before him,
Christ was judged then. And Pilate was the criminal. Think about this, what condescension
that the judge of all the earth subjected himself to the judgment
of men. And you see here in our text
how that all of them got together, the whole council, all the chief
priests and the scribes and the elders, everybody that had a
title, got together to deliberate on what to do about this Jesus
of Nazareth. And they represent us all in
condemning him. Their judgment concerning him
was that he should be crucified. Can you imagine Pilate standing
before him after what happened here? Of course, our imagination
doesn't go that far. We have no account of that, but
we know that it took place. And I know this, and you know
this if you're his, if the Lord's taught you his gospel. Pilate
was sitting in that judgment seat on this day, but the one
who stood before him to be judged is the judge of all things. And
I want to talk again this morning as we did recently in another
study about this word judgment and what it means. They're in
the judgment hall. But this world sees Pilate as
the judge, and Pilate himself saw himself as the judge, I'm
sure. But Christ is the judge of all things. He said in John
5.21, For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them,
even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. For the Father judgeth
no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. Now, it's no coincidence or accident
or something that we can disregard that the word judgment, the idea
of judgment there, and Christ giving life to whomsoever He
will is in the same sentence. Because as we've seen before,
judgment, we talk about the judgment of God. If you go out here and
ask somebody, what do you think of when you think of the judgment
of God? They'll say, well, that's His punishment of sinners. That's
not all that's involved in that word judgment. It's the deciding
of a judicial matter. It's the deciding of a case.
As we saw before, the root word there for judgment has to do
with picking out, selecting, choosing. Our Lord Jesus Christ is gonna
decide everything that's gonna be decided. This book talks about
how that even when a pair of dice is rolled on this earth,
that he decides what comes up. He is the judge of all things.
He is the decider. He's the one who decides who
gets life and who doesn't get life. That's what He said there
in John 5. He's committed all judgment unto the Son, so that
He quickeneth whom He will, that all men, here's why He did it,
that all men should honor the Son. This world does not give
him that honor. They do not honor him as the
judge. They don't honor him as the decider. They honor themselves
as the ones who decide. The most important thing that's
ever been decided, the salvation of sinners, they put it in their
own hands. Our fate, our destiny is in our
own hands. But God put it in the hands of
his son so that you and I would honor his son. And I highly recommend it. Kiss
the son, lest he be angry now. You will honor the son. You will honor him in his mercy
and grace and saving power, or you'll honor him in his justice,
unwillingly. He that honoreth not the Son
honoreth not the Father which hath sent him. And this is why
Paul referred in Romans 14.10 to the judgment seat of Christ,
where we quoted a while ago. The word judge, as I said, it
means to separate, to put asunder, to pick out, to select, to choose. He just said, I give life to
whom I will. He's the one who decides the
matter, whether you live or die. When I think about my children,
those that I love, I want them to live. I'm not hoping that
they'll do something in order to have life. I'm praying to
God. Is that what you do for your children? God, give them
life. You who are the judge of the
whole earth, give life to my loved ones. You who quickens whom you will. If you're going to receive a
pardon from all of your sin, it will come at the hand of the
one that you crucified, you judged worthy of death. Well, you say,
well, oh, Pilate, Pilate said he was innocent. He didn't judge
him worthy of death. The buck stopped with Pilate.
Pilate's the one that delivered him to be crucified. He tried
to wash his hands of it. How are you going to do that?
How are you going to wash the blood of God's son off your hands? It was true of him and it's true
of every one of us. It's true of me. Pilate represents
us here. We consider ourselves by nature
to be the governors. We'll decide our fate. We have
free will. We'll do as we please. We say
like Pilate did in another account of this. He said, don't you know
that I have power to crucify you or let you go? And the Lord
set him straight on that, didn't he? He didn't open his mouth
to defend himself against the ridiculous accusations of men.
But when it came down to who he is, he opened his mouth. When
it came down to the glory of his father, he opened his mouth.
He said, you don't have any power at all. My father has the power. But we consider ourselves by
nature to be the governors to be the ones who decide That's
what happened in the garden Satan said you shall be as God's and
we've considered ourselves gods ever since then we know that
It was a lie then and it's delusion now But most people in this world
are still under that delusion They believe that they will decide
the case and The judge is the one that decides the case, and
that's not you. Religion is full of this mentality.
You know how they talk. What will you do with Jesus?
We know that what he does with us is the question. He's not
up for our acceptance or rejection. Will he accept me? Will the judge? I stand before the judge of all
the earth. And I know this. If I stand in
myself, in my flesh, I must stand condemned. I must
stand without hope, guilty. Lord, if thou shouldst mark iniquities,
who shall stand? But boy, by his grace, I pray.
and believe that I stand in Him. I stand in Christ. I stand in
my representative righteous and perfect in the sight of God.
And I didn't decide the matter. I didn't decide to be righteous.
God made me. He put me in Christ who has made
into me righteousness. That's how that happened. But
the doctrine of free will, self-righteous religion puts the power of judgment,
the deciding of the case in the hands of the sinner. But the truth is we're all subject
under Christ's sovereign will. He will do, shall I do with mine
own what I will? He asks. That old leper had it
right, didn't he? Lord, if you will. The case, my case, is going to
be decided by you. If you will, you can make me
clean. That's my prayer. Lord, oh, make me clean. If you will, you can save my
wretched soul. You can save those that I love.
He has power, authority, as judge. He just, we quoted, all judgment
is committed unto me, of my father. And you know what that includes?
He said, I have power on earth to forgive sins. I have the authority
from my father to say, thy sins be forgiven thee, like he said
to that man in that text. And they are. Thy sins be forgiven
thee. The same one that said, let there
be light, Paul said, shine in my heart. May we by his grace take our
place before the judge and plead for his mercy. and plead on the
basis of redemption accomplished by him. We plead his precious
blood. We come not without an offering.
If you will, Lord, you can wash all my sins away. If you will. Now, man's so-called free will
is in our text also. We'll see that next time in verse
nine, it talks about that. The Lord Jesus Christ was delivered
to our will. What will you? Pilot asked, what
will you that I do with Jesus? There's our will. Our will is crucify the son of
God. Peter said you killed the prince
of life. That's what your will is. It always has been, that's
what happened in the garden. Always has been, always will
be until he imposes his will. You know what his will is? He
said, I will have mercy. We didn't have any. Thank God he does. I will have
mercy. I just wanted to emphasize this
in just these short five verses that what man sees in our text
here is the exact opposite of reality. You and I are the accused. We're the ones that stand condemned. Didn't our Lord say you're condemned
already if you believe not? You're condemned already because
you believe not. on the Son of God. We are by
nature the children of God's wrath. And the Lord Jesus Christ
is the one who has power to damn us or to release us. The power that Pilate claimed,
I have power to crucify you or to let you go. The one he was
talking to is the one that has that authority. And this is the issue now. And
we've seen this all in God's Word, haven't we? This is the
issue, and I believe it always has been. This is the point of
man's religious rebellion. This is the place where the battle
rages the hottest. This question, I think, sums
it all up. Who has authority to do what
with whom? Will you do what you want with
Christ, or is He going to do what He wants with you? Whose
will is supreme? Yours or His? Is salvation up
to you, or is it up to Him? I believe that's always been
it, hasn't it? That's what it was in the Garden
in the beginning. Who's going to decide? You'll
be as God's, determining good and evil. And here's the truth now, in
spite of what Pilate and every other religious, proud, free
will proponent thinks and says, Christ is on the throne. That's where John saw him from
the Isle of Patmos when the Lord revealed himself to him. I saw
a throne in heaven and somebody sitting on it. The lamb, as it
had been slain. That's where he was in the book
of Acts when His servant was being stoned to death and he
gave him a revelation before he died. Stephen said, I see,
I see the very throne of God and the son of man standing at
the right hand of God. He has ascended his throne. God
said, I've set my king on my holy hill of Zion. Kiss him. Pledge allegiance to him, bow
to him. He's the judge of all and he
will do as he pleases with you and I. And we have to understand now
that this is true because his sin atoning blood was and is
effectual to save. He redeemed everyone that he
died for, and this is integral to who he is as the judge. He's
able to give life because his blood was shed for sinners. If not, let me put it this way,
if not for Christ's precious, sin-atoning sacrifice on Calvary,
then he would still be judge, but he would have to condemn
every one of us. There'd be no life and it would all be death. But since he did die for the
sins of his people, in doing so, he redeemed those whom he
was pleased to forgive rather than condemn. His eternal cross
work is the deciding of the matter. If, as most teach in religion,
that he just made atonement available and subject to man's will when
he died, then we're the judge. He's done all he's gonna do and
now it's up to you. You're on the throne now. You're
the judge. You're the decider of the case.
If he just made salvation possible by his death, then what he should,
we quoted a while ago, he said in Matthew 9 to that man, thy
sins be forgiven thee. What he should have said there
is, thy sins might be forgiven thee if you'll accept me as your
personal savior. Or maybe thy sins will be forgiven
thee if you'll let me forgive them. That's not what he said
though. And I'm being silly, but what
he said was, and praise his name forever, because this makes all
the difference between me having a real hope in a real savior
and me being a pathetic wretch without hope because a pathetic
excuse for a savior did his best and then left the matter up to
me. This is the difference. He said, son, be of good cheer,
thy sins be forgiven thee. If his precious sin-atoning blood
is not effectual to save, then upon what authority can he say
that? That I've done all I can do,
and now it's up to you, Jesus, of religion. He can't go around
just forgiving sins like that. He got no authority to do that.
He's left the matter up to the will of man. But my Savior can
go around forgiving sins, and he does. That's why I pray, Lord
forgive my children, forgive those that I love. He's the judge of every man and
woman and he gives pardon, life, forgiveness to whom he will.
And he shall pardon all whose sins he put away by the sacrifice
of himself. That was him doing it. When He
died for them, that was Him pardoning them, putting away their sins.
He did it, the Scripture says, by the sacrifice of Himself.
He put away their sins. We're forgiven on the basis,
it's the deciding of a judicial matter. It's a legal matter,
our problem before God, and so is the solution to it. He decides
the judicial matter as judge, by making us legally righteous
before God. He took our sin upon himself
and bore the penalty of it. And now the same law that condemns
us by nature never condemned his people. But you know what
we mean by that. By nature, we're the children
of wrath. We deserve his condemnation. But because of the eternal blood
of God's Son, who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that
died. You see how that statement in
Romans 8, who is he that condemneth? That's a judicial matter. And
it's been decided in my favor, Paul said. Who is he that can
condemn me? The judicial matter has been
decided. A judgment has taken place. And it's in my favor,
why? Because it is Christ that died. The judge himself has rendered
me just. The judge. And so I can't be
condemned. Who would condemn me? Nobody
else has a right to condemn me. And as the text clearly says
also, nobody has any grounds upon which to condemn me. Because
it is Christ that died for me. So you see what's happening here
in our text. Pilate is sitting on the judgment seat and the
Lord Jesus is standing in the place of the accused. But don't
let that confuse you this morning as to who the judge is. Pilate
believes the Lord Jesus Christ to be subject unto His puny will.
And that's relevant to our day now. There are many, many, many
who believe that this very morning. that the judge of the earth is
subject to their puny will. That they'll accept him, receive
him, or cast him off as it pleases them. That's what Pilate thought. But Jesus of Nazareth has all power this very morning
to condemn or release you. And as I just said, and it's
on the authority of His cross work, His redemptive
work on the cross for His people. Upon that basis of justice satisfied,
He gives life to whom He will. What He did there on that cross
is to suffer the full wrath of God for the sins of His people. And he has power to bring down
God's wrath for your sin on your head or deliver you from the wrath
of God. And what he's about to do here
in our text, what he's going to do when he's going to the
cross here, he's about to exercise that right. What he did there
is either your everlasting condemnation. This is the condemnation that
light came into the world and you hated him and killed him.
But this is also salvation that the Son of God gave Himself for
our sins according to the Scriptures. So you see how all of this is
bound up in Christ crucified. And here's his word this morning
to all sinners. It's the same word it's always
been, come unto me and I'll give you rest. Come now and let us
reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet,
don't let your sins, your sins won't keep you from him. unless
your sins are your righteousness. If what you consider your righteousness
is what you've done, then it's nothing but sin. And your righteousness
now, that's the problem. That's the problem. Come unto
me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you
rest. Whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. If you came this morning to exercise
your will about something, then just forget about that because
your will is meaningless. Your will is worse than meaningless,
it's evil. But if you came like that leper
in Matthew chapter eight, I always think of him, I think about coming
to the Lord because he came to find out something, didn't he?
He didn't take it for granted. He came to get a verdict from
the judge. Isn't that what he came for? If you will, I'm gonna
be clean or not based on your will. And if you came this morning
to find out if the Lord of glory, the judge
of all the earth would be merciful or not to you, are you interested
in that at all this morning? Are you a leper? Are you a beggar?
Are you a sinner? Then come to him Come to him
as the judge, the decider, and put the matter in his hands.
And I guarantee you, you'll find him merciful. If you will, you
can make me clean. I will. I will. I will. And we must come to him in the
very character in which we rejected him, as Pilate represents us
here in this text. the king of salvation, the judge,
the king of life, the king of grace. Peter preached in Acts
chapter 2, God hath made this same Jesus whom you crucified,
that one standing there, to be judged of men. God made him both
Lord and Christ. And they said, what in the world
are we going to do? The one we murdered is the only one who
can pardon us. The one that we judged guilty
is the only one that can judge us righteous. That could be a
real problem now. But bless his name, he's ready
to pardon. Come to the throne of grace,
the throne, the throne of grace. mercy." Pilate asked him in verse
2, are you the king of the Jews? And he said, thou sayest it,
or it is as you say it. Thou hast rightly said, that's
the answer. We see also in John's account of this that our Lord
made it clear to Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world,
but he is indeed the king of the true Jews. And we won't talk
about that. Are you the king of the Jews,
he asked him. We know what Jews he's talking about there. He
said, my kingdom is not of this world. He said that to Pilate
in this same context. My kingdom is not of this world.
I'm not the king of the earthly Jews. I'm the king of my spiritual
Jews, the people of God, the children of God. He's the king
of his elect, and think about our king standing there, having
been mistreated as he had, and hear the contempt in Pilate's
voice. Are you the king? And you can picture him to some
extent. We don't let our imagination
run very far, but we know what had happened to him. We know
that he had been beaten bloody and mistreated terribly, and
he probably looked like a homeless man that had been beaten up the
night before, rather than the king of glory. Are you the king of the Jews?
But what would you say this morning? Is he your king? Would you own
him as your king?" This despised and rejected Nazarene. And then
when presented with all that he was accused with, Jesus yet
answered nothing, so that Pilate marveled. This is very interesting. When our Lord spoke, men were
astonished. And they marveled at what he
said. In Luke 4.32, they were astonished at his doctrine, for
his word was with power. When the Lord's preachers preach
Christ, people are astonished. We see that in the book of Acts,
chapter 13, if you want to read an account of that, verses 4
through 12. A miracle had just been performed
in that passage there in Acts 13. A great miracle had been
performed. But what astonished the one that
was there was the doctrine of the Lord, not the miracle, the
doctrine. And here in our text, we see
that even when our Lord did not speak, it was astonishing. Is
that amazing? It was marvelous. He marveled. There are a lot of spiritual
lessons in this now. When our Lord is judicially silent
to sinners and chooses not to reveal himself, not to show himself
to sinners as he is, that's astonishing, isn't it? That's terrible. and marvelous at the same time.
I'm sure Pilate was used to people cowering before him, don't you
imagine, and no doubt justifying themselves. Look at all the things
they've accused you of. I'm sure he was used to people
saying, oh, but this and that and the other, all these extenuating
circumstances, and it wasn't my fault, and it was so and so,
and this and that. But this man, the man, he had
no interest in that. And when asked who he is, our
Lord answered, but not when he was accused.
And let's consider something here in closing, one final thought. Our Lord stood here in this judgment
hall, and we know that he is the judge. The Father committed
all judgment under the Son, and Pilate, just like the rest of
it, he's going to stand before Christ to be judged. But think
about what something else that's going on here. Our Lord Jesus
Christ is in the judgment hall. In a whole nother sense. He stood
in the place of judgment condemned by his father. A judgment hall
that pilot didn't know anything about. And most people don't. And all of the sins of all of
his people for all time. are brought forth as an accusation
against him, are laid to his charge." And he answered, not a word. Not a word. Pilate, just in the words of
a man, taught us a great spiritual lesson here. He said, look at
everything that you're accused of. And I'm sure that our Lord Jesus
Christ was well aware of everything that he stood guilty of before
his father. All of my sin, your sin, everybody's
sin that he died for. And yet, as a sheep before his
shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. His father held
him accountable, held him fully accountable. for every sin that
I have and ever will commit, countless, innumerable, and infinitely
evil. The evil of sin is not measured
by how bad a thing I think I did. It's measured by who it is that
I sinned against, infinitely evil. And he answered not a word,
as a lamb before his shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his
mouth. And if he defended not himself in
the true judgment that was taking place here." That kind of puts
Pilate's accusations in their proper perspective, doesn't it? Isaiah 53, I want to close
by just reading Isaiah 53.3. Think about him standing here
in the judgment hall. Standing in the judgment hall
accused by Pilate. That was nothing. But accused. And guilty. As my substitute,
that's something. He is despised and rejected of
men. A man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces
from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And it wasn't a gamble. It wasn't a maybe-so, an if,
this and that. The result of it is this. We
were healed. He took my sin and the punishment
of it, and I'm healed. If you will, you can make me
clean. I will. as the one who is able to make that so, as the
one who has the authority to forgive sins by that precious
blood. It's that blood that washes sins
away. And it's as the Redeemer that He says, thy sins are forgiven
thee. And it's as my substitute that He healed me. By His stripes,
we are healed. There's a direct result of His
redeeming blood and power. All we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way. That's our part. What's your part in salvation,
Chris? I need it. Here's his part. The Lord hath
laid on him the iniquity of us all. God's part is he put my
sin on his son and condemned him and killed him for my sin
that I might go free. He was oppressed. He was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. That's talking about our text
now. But we see the spiritual lesson here now. He wasn't just
accused of pilot, he was accused by God of all of the sins of his people.
And he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is done. So open he not his mouth. What Isaiah wrote of all those
years ago, that's what we're witnessing. In our text. I pray the Lord would. Impress
upon us. Would reveal to us his son crucified
for our sins. Let's pray.