Sermons
Who Crucified Christ
Sun, Apr 01, 2018
Teacher: Tom Blackford Series: Sunday Sermons - 2018 Scripture: Matthew 27:1-25
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“Who Crucified Christ”
Matthew 27:1-25
INTRO:
Good Morning. I'll begin this morning with a story of three executives who were being ferried across Seattle in a helicopter. When without warning, a huge cloudbank descended. It was too high for the pilot to fly above it and too low for him to fly below it. So he carefully flew the helicopter through the dense mist. As he tried to regain his bearings, he could see a tall building through the cloud. As he flew towards it, he spoke to his co-pilot. The co-pilot took out an old map and wrote something on the back of it with a marker.
When the helicopter drew near the building the co-pilot held up the map. On which he had written in large letters: “Where are we?” The people in the building recognizing their distress quickly wrote on a large piece of paper and held it up and it read: “You are in a helicopter.” The pilot picked up a manual. Punched some co-ordinates into the on-board computer and flew the executives to their destination.
When they had landed, one of the executives turned to the pilot and asked: “How did you know where we were, from a sign that read: ‘You are in a helicopter.” “Oh, that was easy,” replied the pilot. “I just knew that had to be the Microsoft building, because they gave me an answer that was technically correct and absolutely useless!”
Having spent many years with computers I might find that more amusing than some others would.
Let's look at something more serious now. When we look at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, one of the questions that comes up is: “who is most responsible for the death of Jesus on the cross?” This is a question which has puzzled and intrigued people for a long time. It has spawned many written works about the last days of Jesus trying to decide basically who was most responsible for putting Jesus on the cross.
That’s the very question I want us to consider today: Who is most responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus? I can give you the technically correct answer to that question. It was a nameless squad of Roman soldiers, commanded by a centurion, who crucified Jesus. The details are sketchy. We don’t know their names. Scripture gives little indication of their feelings as they carried out the death sentence on Jesus. They did what they were trained to do, execute criminals.
Crucifixion was a horrible and gruesome act, but notice the Bible doesn’t go into that. It just tells us that they took Jesus out and crucified Him. This anonymous squad of Roman soldiers, hammered in the nails, raised Him on a cross, and stuck a spear in His side. All of which resulted in His death.
If that’s the answer we are going to settle for then we haven’t looked deep enough. We need to look at the crucifixion like an old paint covered chair. We need to strip away the layers to reach a conclusion about: “Who really crucified Jesus Christ?” We want to begin this morning by stripping away the top three layers. These three layers are three men whom scripture holds particularly culpable for the death of Jesus.
I. The first one we will look at is one of His disciples—Judas.
A. The first question, which is frequently raised about Judas, is: “How can Judas be held responsible, if his betrayal of Jesus was predicted?” Yes, his betrayal was predicted, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a free agent, any more than the Old Testament prophecies of Jesus death would mean that He did not die voluntarily. There are numerous Old Testament prophecies about the death of Jesus and yet scripture says quite clearly “His death was His choice”.
B. Judas’ choice was exactly the same. It was his choice to turn Jesus over to the authorities and it was a choice that crucified Jesus. Have you ever wondered about Judas’ motive to betray Jesus? Again this is one of the questions of history that has been the subject of many books and much speculation.
C. However, when you turn to scripture you will find that the answer to: “Why did Judas betray Jesus?” It is as simple as it was sinful.
1. We begin in John 12 which as you remember, is the story of Jesus being anointed by Mary with a bottle of perfume. Judas protests that the money could have been used to help the poor. John goes on to say in John 12:6 (KJV) – "This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein." you see Judas was in charge of the disciples' funds and apparently into them for his own use!
2. Judas was stealing from the pooled money. The first point we note as to who crucified Jesus, we can say, Judas’ greed put Jesus on the cross. His greed crucified Jesus, and there is more evidence from scripture to support this.
3. After Jesus was anointed by Mary, Matthew records that Judas left the room, went to the chief priests and said to them in Matthew 26:15 (KJV) – "... What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver." “How much will you pay me to put Jesus into your hands?” he asked them.
D. You know, Judas was not a unique person. He’s only one of many people, who have sold out Jesus. Judas is simply a powerful illustration of a principle taught by Jesus when he said in Mark 8:36 – "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
E. We cannot serve God and money. If we try, we will ultimately make a choice as Judas did. His greed crucified Jesus. Judas is a tragic example of what happens when people go all out for materialism and in the process they lose their souls. Judas made a poor choice. What about us?
II. Next we scrape away the second layer of paint. Underneath this layer we find the leaders of the Jews and in particular a guy named, Caiaphas, who is the High Priest.
A. He’s the one that clearly exhibits their collective motives. He’s the one who orchestrated the worst miscarriage of justice in legal history. Lawyers who have studied the Jewish legal system of that time are quite clear that, in his eagerness to get rid of Jesus, Caiaphas broke the law.
B. And he broke it many times over.
1. He shouldn’t have allowed the trial to go ahead at night.
2. He shouldn’t have allowed it to be held out with the Hall of Hewn stone in the Temple.
3. He shouldn’t have allowed a criminal case to proceed during the Passover season.
4. He could only allow the case to finish on the same day if it was a not guilty verdict.
5. He didn’t have two witnesses examined separately before the trial, and he certainly didn’t have all the evidence for the court, prior to the start of the trial.
C. The verdict was decided before the evidence was even considered. What happened that would cause these men to conduct an unfair and crooked trial? Again, scripture has the answer. Matthew records that the Chief Priests and Jewish leaders were trying to find a way to get the Romans to pass the death sentence on Jesus. Matthew 27:1-2 – "When the morning was come, all the chief preists and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death: And when they had bound Him, they led Him away, and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate the governor".
D. So they pack Jesus off, in bonds, to Pilate, but Pilate wasn’t conned by their claims that they cared about the future of the Roman Empire. He knew their real motive. Matthew says in chapter 27:17-18 – "Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called the Christ? For he knew that for envy they had delivered Him"
E. He knew very well that the Jewish leaders had arrested Jesus out of envy because of his popularity with the people. Pilate knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him. It was nothing more than sheer jealousy that motivated them.
F. That’s the second point we note as to who crucified Jesus. The envy of Caiaphas crucified Jesus. He and the other officials viewed Jesus as a threat to their position and to their prejudices.
1. Even though they hated Herod, they were no different than he was when you closely examine them. Herod knew and heard a new King had been born. The first thing he thought was: “He’s a threat and I have to get rid of Him”.
2. That’s exactly what Caiaphas and his crooked cronies did. They convicted Jesus, not because He was a sinner, but because they were. Greed and envy handed over the Son of God. It did then and it still does today by the way.
III. Let’s look at what’s under another coat of paint. As we strip this one away, another name appears—one person whose finger prints are all over the cross. That’s the governor Pilate.
A. It seems that Pilate was a man who valued justice and we reach that conclusion by the very fact that three different times, he publicly declared that Jesus was innocent. It’s recorded in Luke 23:22 – "And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in Him: I will therefore chastise Him and let Him go."
B. Pilate tried to avoid sentencing Jesus to death, but Pilate’s downfall was that he was also a consummate politician. He knew that releasing Jesus would not please the crowd. He tried to please the mob with a series of four cowardly compromises. Giving them what they wanted, without this whole fiasco turning into a gross miscarriage of justice.
1. First of all, he packed Jesus off to Herod, claiming that Galilee was Herod’s responsibility. However, Herod sent Him back.
2. Secondly, he decided to exchange Jesus for a gangster believing that the mob wouldn’t want a violent thug released to them. That didn’t work. The mob chose Barabbus.
3. Then thirdly, he decides he’d have Jesus flogged within an inch of his life and that would come close to the real thing and satisfy the mob. Pilate should have known better. You don’t satisfy a pack of wolves by giving them a taste of blood.
4. Finally, the fourth thing he did, with great pomp and ceremony, he had a bowl of water brought to him and washing his hands, he tells the mob in Matthew 27:24-25 - "I am innocent of the blood of this good man. The responsibility is yours!” They said: “Fine, the responsibility is ours.”[para] Every attempt he tried to make to avoid sentencing Jesus failed.
C. Then the Jewish leaders said something that sealed it. John 19:12 – "And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release Him; but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend; whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar." From that point forward, Pilate dropped all this business about Jesus being innocent.
D. Pilate’s fear crucified Jesus. He was afraid. He was afraid that word would get back to Caesar that he was not a loyal governor. He was afraid that word would get to his peers that he was a weak governor. He was afraid that the people would become restless and revolt against him.
E. Yes, Pilate wanted justice, but fear played a higher motivation in Pilate’s life than justice. We see fear preverting justice today as well. That’s the lesson we all must learn from Pilate. People need to decide what their ultimate fear is going to be. That’s something Jesus said in Matthew 10:28 - "... fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both the soul and the body in hell."
F. You see, Pilate decided that his ultimate fear was what every politician fears: falling out with the people. That’s what it says in Mark 15:15 - "... so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scouged Him, to be crucified." That was Pilate’s fear, what’s ours?
G. You see, greed put Jesus on the cross; envy held the nails and fear hammered them in, but the scriptures don’t stop there. We’ve looked around the cross and identified the guilty. Now we must look above the cross and see who else was responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.
IV. A famous artist named Holman Hunt created a really famous picture of Jesus. It shows Jesus at the door of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth. He is still only a boy and has come to the door to stretch his limbs, which had grown cramped over the bench. He stands there in the doorway with arms outstretched, and behind him, on the wall, the setting sun throws his shadow, it is the shadow of a cross. In the background there stands Mary, and as she sees that shadow, and there is the fear of the coming tragedy in her eyes.
A. What Hunt is trying to say is that the shadow of the cross always hung over Jesus, from the moment he was born. Matthew 2:11 - "... when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his Mother, and fell down, and worshiped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh."
B. Myrrh was used to embalm the bodies of the dead. John 19:39 - "... there also came Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight."
C. You see, something happens at the cross that was always in the mind of God. Yes, men were guilty of the most heinous crime ever committed, but somehow in some way, even though their evil depravity was responsible for crucifying Jesus, God was also at work.
D. These two ideas are brought together in Peter’s first sermon. In Acts 2:23 - it says paraphrased; “But God, following his prearranged plan, let you use the Roman government to nail him to the cross and murder him”.
E. God doesn’t make men evil but He does use evil men. Nor does God design treachery, but he can work treachery into His plan and we can say without a doubt that God put Jesus on the cross. The plan of the cross existed before Moses, Jacob, Isaac and Abraham. In fact the cross plan is older than this world. Revelation 13:8 - “And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.”
F. That’s exactly why God could speak of the death of Jesus, His gospel, being according to the scriptures. God foretold the death of Jesus. Acts 3:18 says – "But those things, which God before had shown by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled" Jesus Himself said the same thing in Mark 14:21 – "The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! Good were it for that man if he had never been born."
V. We know that three of the things Jesus said on the cross are direct quotes from the Old Testament. It was God’s plan. Yes, the cross exposes human wickedness at its worse, but it was also the revelation of how God was going to overcome human evil.
A. We can say that God was also responsible for putting Christ on the cross. You’ll find that in scripture too. Romans 8:32 – "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall he not with Him also freely give us all things?" “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.”
B. Scripture says that Judas put Jesus on the cross. Scripture says that Caiaphas put Jesus on the cross. Scripture says that Pilate put Jesus on the cross. It also says that God put him on the cross.
C. The cross was God’s plan from the beginning. Jesus knew that before he came. That’s what the struggle in Gethsemane was all about, wasn’t it? He was praying so hard, he began to sweat as blood. Before the crucifixion, as Jesus Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciple and physician Luke noted in 22:44 “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. And His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
1. Although this medical condition is relatively rare, according to Dr. Frederick Zugibe, it is known, and there have been cases of it. The clinical term is (pardon the pronounciation) "haematohidrosis." "Around the sweat glands, there are multiple blood vessels in a net-like form."
2. Under the pressure of great stress the vessels constrict. Then as the anxiety passes "the blood vessels dilate to the point of rupture. The blood goes into the sweat glands." As the sweat glands are producing a lot of sweat, it pushes the blood to the surface, coming out as droplets of blood.
3. We ask ourselves, what was the source of Jesus’ great stress and anguish? Clearly he was in intense spiritual agony. He has to make a decision. The same decision that Adam had to make, and the same decision that you and I have to make. Will I do what I want? Or will I do what God wants?
4. God asked such a small thing of Adam. He put him in a beautiful paradise; told him to have anything he wanted, but just don’t touch that one tree. That’s all He asked of Adam. What did He ask of Jesus? He asked Him to go and hang on a tree. That’s what Jesus was wrestling with, and when He left Gethsemane, we know what His decision was because He didn’t back down.
D. Do you know why? Jesus died before He was killed. He died to self. He died to personal ambition. He died to personal desire. He died before he was killed. Jesus didn’t flinch. He didn’t go to the cross like a victim. He went to the cross as a man who had fully embraced the will of his Father.
E. John 10:17-18 – "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I recieved of my Father."
F. Jesus had to make that decision. He didn’t have to choose to carry it out. Throughout his ministry he could have stepped back into heaven at any time. Even the devil knew that. As you know from Matthew 4 after Satan had failed to tempt Jesus, God sent angels to care for Him. I believe Jesus could have returned to his Father right then and there. Again, in Matthew 17 when Jesus spoke with Elijah and Moses, he could have returned with them right then and there as well.
G. He could have avoided the cross, but not if he wanted to accomplish the longing of His Father’s heart. His Father loved the lost children of the world and their only hope, was a perfect substitute, to take the penalty that they deserved. Jesus loved His Father and He knew what His Father wanted.
VI. The night before He died, Jesus said in John 14:30 – "Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." "The prince of this world is on his way. He has no power over me”. Satan doesn’t make Jesus do anything. Then in John 14:31, Jesus says – "But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence."
A. We must acknowledge that Jesus’ love put Him on the cross. He chose the cross because He loved His Father so much. He chose the cross because He loved us so much.
B. John 15:13 says – "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." In Galatians 2:20 it says – "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ livith in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave hiself for me."
CONCLUSION:
Do we understand what the words “gave Himself for me” really mean? Jesus put Himself on the cross. Yes, Judas, Caiaphas and Pilate put Jesus on the cross, and in a mystery almost too complex for us to comprehend, the Bible says that God put Him on the cross. It even says that He put Himself on the cross.
He loved us, and He put Himself on the cross for us. When we come to grips with that, it will finally hit us that the very best answer as to “Who crucified Christ” is: our sins crucified Him, Christ. Revelation 1:5 says "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood."
Our sins crucified Jesus Christ. Though He was raised on that cross 2000 years ago, the shadow of the cross falls across the length of time and it reaches us today. Like Pilate, we want to say: “I am innocent of this man’s blood. I didn’t have anything to do with the cross.”
Pilate can protest all he wants, but scripture knows better and so do we. We can’t wash our hands of the cross. Ask yourself this question. Does anyone have a problem with some of these? “Idolatry, encouraging the activity of demons, hatred and fighting, jealousy and anger, constant effort to get the best for ourselves, complaints and criticisms, the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in our own little group, wrong doctrine, envy, liying, murder, drunkenness, wild parties, and all that sort of thing.”
Certainly there are a few of my sins in there. The list is a lot longer than that and I'm sure we can think of some other sins to add as well. Remember the song: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Yes, we were there, I was there and so were you. Not just as a spectator either, but as a participant! We will never understand the cross as something done for us, until we see it as something done by us.
We were there too and our sins were as much responsible for the cross as the men who were there that day. Our fingerprints are all over the cross and the day that hits our hearts, is the day when we’ll get serious about discipleship!
After the first gospel sermon, Peter finished by telling the people that “they had crucified Jesus”. They already knew that in their heads, but that day, it says they were pricked in their hearts. Acts 2:37(KJV) - says "Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethern, what shall we do?"
We will never take ownership of our cross, until we own up to His. Jesus has a cross for everybody. The Old Rugged Cross must become our rugged cross, if we’re going to follow Jesus. You and I will never carry our crosses until we are broken by the truth that our sins sent Jesus to His. It must get out of the heads, out of our Bibles and into our hearts where we are changed, broken and undone.
Until that happens, the cross will be still just a story we read and not the center of who we are. Jesus handed over his life for you. Let me leave you with this question, would you hand your life over to him?
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We learn from the New Testament how to be saved. We need to hear the word; believe in Jesus; repent of our sins; we must confess our belief that Jesus is the Son of God; and be baptized for the remission of our sins... If we follow these steps, the Lord adds us to His church.
Perhaps there is someone in the assembly today with the need to be buried with Christ in baptism. If you have never done these things, we urge you to do so today. If anyone has this need or desires the prayers of faithful Christians on their behalf, we encourage them to come forward while we stand and sing.
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Reference Sermon
Mike Glover
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