WWUTT 2122 Jesus is Crucified (Matthew 27:27-44)

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Jesus was tortured and crucified, and a lot of times we might put more emphasis in what the process of crucifixion would have been like, but in all actuality, the worst part of His death was taking the wrath of God upon Himself when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the word of Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.

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Find all our videos and other ministry resources at www .utt .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings everyone. Yesterday we ended with Pilate turning

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Jesus over to be scourged and then crucified, and that's where we're picking up in our text today.

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This is Matthew chapter 27, starting in verse 27, and I'll read through verse 56 out of the

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Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. Then, when the soldiers of the governor took

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Jesus in the praetorium, they gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him, and they stripped

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Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head and a reed in His right hand, and they knelt down before Him and mocked

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Him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they spat on Him and took the reed and began to beat

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Him on the head. When they had mocked Him, they took the scarlet robe off Him and put

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His own garments back on Him and led Him away to crucify Him. And as they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named

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Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross. And when they came to a place called

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Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they gave Him wine to drink mixed with gall, and after tasting it,

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He did not want to drink. And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots, and sitting down they began to keep watch over Him there.

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And above His head they put up the charge against Him which read, This is Jesus, the

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King of the Jews. At that time two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and one on the left, and those passing by were blaspheming

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Him, shaking their heads, and saying, You who are going to destroy the sanctuary and rebuild it in three days, save yourself.

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If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes and the elders, were mocking

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Him and saying, He saved others. He cannot save Himself. He is the

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King of Israel. Let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God?

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Let God rescue Him now, if He delights in Him, for He said, I am the Son of God. And the robbers who had been crucified with Him were also insulting

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Him with the same words. Now, from the sixth hour, darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour.

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And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani, that is,

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My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? And some of those who were standing there when they heard it began saying,

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This man is calling for Elijah. And immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave him a drink.

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But the rest of them were saying, Let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit.

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And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn into from top to bottom, and the earth shook and the rocks were split, and the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.

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Now the centurion and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said,

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Truly this was God's Son. And many women were there, looking on from a distance, who had followed

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Jesus from Galilee while ministering to Him. Among them was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

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Oftentimes when we get to the Easter story, or we get to Good Friday account or something like that, you'll have ministers that will describe in greater detail than even what we have read here, the kind of pain and torture that Jesus went through as He was beaten and then hung on a cross.

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And indeed Jesus was greatly tortured. And I think one of the things that we recognize in that is how this fulfills prophecy.

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Because it was prophesied that Jesus would be treated that way, also that He would be persecuted for the fact that He claimed to be the

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Son of God. Because He preached the gospel, He was persecuted for it. So we should not be surprised therefore, when we are joined with Christ and preach

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His good news that the world hates us and wants to destroy us like they tried to destroy

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Him. But Jesus did not go through much more pain than anyone else who was crucified, with the exception of perhaps the crown of thorns.

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That might be the one addition to His death that most who were crucified would not have to endure.

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Others who were crucified would also be beaten, scourged, have to carry their own cross to their place and be hung there to die.

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And in fact, they would hang there longer than Jesus did. Jesus died within three hours of being on the cross.

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And sometimes it took days for a person hanging on a cross to die. There is another gospel account that says that it was surprising that Jesus had died so early.

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But remember that Jesus said previously, He had authority to lay His own life down and He had authority to take it back up again.

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So in dying as quickly as He did, He demonstrated that He had yielded up His spirit to the

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Father. It's not in Matthew's gospel that this is recalled, but it is said elsewhere that He says to the

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Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit, and then He dies. It was indeed a painful and torturous death that Jesus went through.

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I don't think we're going out of bounds in any way by considering the specifics of crucifixion and what it does to the body.

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You've probably heard that anatomy lesson before. But there are other manners of torture that people have gone through, and even worse, and it lasted longer, that probably went through more pain than Jesus did.

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Remember, all of this is transpiring just in a matter of hours. It was just the night before that Jesus had been arrested, and then

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He's beaten and He's put to death, and all of this happens in the span of practically an afternoon.

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So He doesn't endure these things for very long. Why do I bring that up? Because it's important that we recognize what makes

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His crucifixion horrific is not the pain He endured. I mean, indeed,

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He was tortured, and if there was anyone who did not deserve to be tortured, it was

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Christ. So indeed, He was tortured. He gave His own life and did so for us, but the most horrific thing that we read about here is not how

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He was tortured. It's that He took the wrath of God upon Himself.

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That's the most horrific thing that we read. That's the thing that should make us tremble and recognize,

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Jesus did this for me so that I would not have to go through this. Remember, we talked about this when

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Jesus was in the garden praying, Father, if it be Your will, let this cup pass from me, not as I will, but as You will.

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If there was any other way than this way, God, let it be that way.

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But of course, it was the will of the Father to crush Him, as we're reading in Isaiah 53, and we'll come back to that on Thursday.

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And so this was indeed the Father's will that Jesus would die in this way as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

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And the most horrific thing about His death isn't the way in which He died. It's that He died there taking the wrath of God upon Himself on our behalf.

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We read these various torturous things that Jesus went through indicates to us that indeed He died.

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This was not the Son of God transporting Himself out of His body for a time so that He didn't have to feel this and didn't have to go through this.

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He really endured this suffering, and He really gave His life. And we read the details of Him being tortured and put to death so that we can recognize through this narrative account that He really died.

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His body really perished, and He was really put in a tomb dead, and it wasn't the cool air of the tomb that caused

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Him to revive and come back to life. That's called the swoon theory, by the way. But that did not happen with Jesus.

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He really died. He was really buried, and He really came back to life.

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So let's go back to His being mocked in verse 27. Now, this was a military garment that they dressed

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Him in. It was the kind of thing that Pilate probably wore. If somebody was a general or an authority over armies, they wore this scarlet robe.

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You've probably seen the red tunic look that Roman soldiers had in some of the illustrations that you may have observed.

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So that's what they put on Jesus. And they did that because they're mocking Him as a king. He thinks He's a king.

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He thinks He can lead armies. And it could be that these Romans are even aware of the fact that the

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Jews were anticipating a coming Messiah who indeed would be their emancipator, and He would lead some kind of rebellion against the

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Romans. So the Romans may be aware of that. And that's why they put this on Him and mock Him in this way, because it's like, yeah, let's see you raise up an army and rebel against us now,

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O king. And after twisting together a crown of thorns, so of course they're putting a crown on Him since He is to be a king.

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But of course this would cause immense pain, not a royal crown, but a crown of humiliation.

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They twisted together a crown of thorns. They put it on His head and a reed in His right hand, and they knelt down before Him and mocked

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Him saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they spat on Him and took the reed and began to beat

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Him on the head. Now you may have seen pictures of Jesus, illustrations, where He has the crown of thorns around His head, and the thorns are even embedded into His skull.

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Have you ever seen some of those illustrations and the blood is coming down and things like that? That may not have been the case.

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It may not have been that striking the crown of thorns on His head caused the thorns to actually go through His skull.

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That's very unlikely. It still would have been immensely painful. Can you imagine somebody putting a crown of thorns on your head and then whacking at the crown of thorns?

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It surely hurt. It surely tore up His skin, but would not have necessarily penetrated

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His skull. I think the thorns would have broken first before something like that would have happened. So sometimes the pictures of Jesus being scourged and crucified, sometimes they can tend to be a little bit more graphic than it really was.

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But Him being scourged would have flayed the skin. It would have broken His skin open on His back, the scourging that He went through, which was prior to this, this mockery that's happening right here.

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So He's already been beaten. In fact, Pilate would have flogged Jesus, and then

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Jesus was even brought back before Pilate. Matthew doesn't quite put it in that order. But the flogging happened before Pilate had finally issued that Jesus was to be crucified.

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So they mock Him. They took off the scarlet robe. They put His own garments back on Him, and they led

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Him away to crucify Him. And then verse 32, as they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named

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Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross. Now, I know the picture is often of Jesus bearing a big cross on His shoulders, right?

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Like the whole cross, the vertical beam and the horizontal beam. He's got it on His shoulders, and He's carrying it down the way, all the way up to Golgotha, and that's where He is crucified.

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But actually, it would have just been the cross beam. So it was just the horizontal beam. That's all

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He carried. He wasn't expected to drag an entire cross, and neither did the thieves who were crucified with Him.

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They did not drag huge crosses. They were tied to their cross beams and were supposed to carry it.

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But Jesus had already been so tortured by this point and was already so weary and tired.

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I mean, consider, He's not even slept the night before. This whole thing has been going on from the previous day.

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So He is worn out. He's tired. He's been beaten. He's bleeding everywhere. And so it is upon this man,

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Simon of Cyrene, who is taken from the crowd, and it is told to him that he is going to carry the cross of Jesus.

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And so He's carrying that cross beam. That's what it is that Simon would be taking for Him.

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So they come to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull, and they gave Him wine to drink mixed with gall, and after tasting it,

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He did not want to drink it. And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots, and sitting down, they began to keep watch over Him there.

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Now we know this was in fulfillment of what is said in Psalm 22. For dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me, they have pierced my hands and feet.

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I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. Counting all my bones just goes to say how much

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Jesus was flayed. His back so ripped up that ribs were showing. His bones could be counted.

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And then in verse 18, they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

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And here that's happening, exactly as it was prophesied a thousand years earlier in Psalm 22, is precisely what is taking place.

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The dogs that encompass me, that word dogs was used in the Old Testament to talk about Gentiles, and that's the

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Romans, who are casting lots for His garments as He is hanging on a cross to die.

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And it says in verse 37, above His head, they put up this charge against Him, which read,

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This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Now notice the next couple of lines.

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At that time, two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and one on the left. So just as we've read in Isaiah 53, that He was put to death with sinners.

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And then verse 39, and those passing by Him were blaspheming Him, shaking their heads and saying, and they gave their mocking words.

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Oftentimes, our picture of Golgotha, the hill on which Jesus died, is like out away from everything else.

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He was crucified outside the city, of course, because it would have been considered unclean by both the

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Jews and the Romans for Jesus to be put to death in the city walls. Capital punishment did not take place in the city.

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It happened outside the city walls. So He's taken to, called Place of the Skull. It didn't look like a skull.

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That was just its name. And it had that name because that's where criminals were put to death. And it's thought of as being a hill, you know, and maybe even the hill looked like a skull, eye sockets in it and whatever else, and two tombs that look like eyes.

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And that's how it got the name Golgotha. It may not have been a hill at all. In fact, nothing in the gospels says that it was a hill.

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We sing it in the old hymns though, right? On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross. That's fine.

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It's great hymn. I sing it too. But it may not have been a hill that He was crucified on. It may have just really been called the

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Place of the Skull because that was where people were put to death. But notice that it was a place where people passed by.

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So it wasn't so out of the way and remote that no one would see it. That's not the Roman way. The Romans wanted to put criminals to death in a place where everybody could see them so that you would know not to cross the

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Romans. This is what will happen to you if you break the law. So executions were public and it was to strike fear in the hearts of the people.

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So we see here that Jesus was really crucified on a roadway. It's still

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Golgotha. It's still the Place of the Skull, but it's a longer road because people are passing by and they're blaspheming

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Him as they go by. Apparently people can't help but pass by whatever road it was that He was on.

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There was going to be traffic going by and they would say things to Him like, you who are going to destroy the sanctuary and rebuild it in three days, save yourself.

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If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. And in the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes and the elders, they were mocking

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Him and saying, He saved others. He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel.

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Let Him now come down from the cross and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God.

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Let God rescue Him now if He delights in Him, for He said, I am the

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Son of God. Now, it is often depicted of Jesus being crucified that He was wearing a loin cloth.

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And I think the symbols of the crucifixes that we will see or some of those sculptures of Jesus being crucified, we don't like to look at them.

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We don't want to see them. Places like the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church will especially put images of that exactly.

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Jesus hanging on a cross. The Protestant symbol or the symbol of the

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Puritans was to not have anything on the cross at all because Jesus is not there anymore.

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He was buried and He is risen. So it was the Protestant emblem to have an empty cross rather than the crucifix with Jesus hanging on it.

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But anyway, that said, you know, there are images, paintings of Jesus hanging on the cross and He's always wearing some kind of a garment.

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It's not much clothing, but it's somewhat clothing. And then people may even complain about the fact that that is an uncomfortable image and it is not appropriate to depict

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Him wearing that little. You know, maybe somebody would make that kind of complaint. But in all actuality, when the

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Romans crucified somebody, they were naked. He didn't have a loin cloth.

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He was hanging nude on the cross. And this was such a shame.

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It was a shameful thing. That was what the Roman government wanted. They wanted to shame you.

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They were going to embarrass you to your very death. They were going to torture you to your death so that others would pass by and see and know don't cross the

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Romans. No pun intended there. But there is Jesus hanging naked on the cross, the

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Son of God put to shame. Put to shame in this way. But remember, this is all happening for our benefit.

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This is all happening so that we who would believe in Him would not be put to shame.

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That our shame would be covered by His righteousness.

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He died in this way so that we could be forgiven. Going back to Isaiah 53 again, by oppression and judgment,

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He was taken away and for His generation who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

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He had done no violence. There was no deceit in His mouth. Yet He was put to death in this way for the forgiveness of our sins.

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As we're going to get to this coming Thursday in verse 10, yet it was the will of the

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Lord to crush Him. He has put Him to grief when His soul makes an offering for guilt.

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He shall see His offspring. He shall prolong His days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.

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For what Christ is doing here and because He is the innocent sacrifice that the Father will willingly receive,

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Jesus will be raised from the dead and He will inherit everything. For the

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Father will give to Him all that belongs to the Father so it will belong to the

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Son. We're going to stop there for now and then we're going to pick up on this text tomorrow, finishing up the crucifixion and reading also of Jesus being buried.

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Let's finish with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank You for what we've read here, difficult things to read.

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But I pray they are things that we take to heart for we recognize what was needed for us to be forgiven our sins, for us to be made right before God.

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Yeah, it's embarrassing, it's humiliating that the Roman government would embarrass

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Jesus in this way as they would do with all of their criminals. But what's even more shameful is what we have done before God.

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And we are naked before You. There is no hiding the things that we have done. You know everything.

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You know all. As Jesus had rebuked the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3,

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He says, "...buy from Me garments that your nakedness may not be seen."

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And God, that is what we need. We need those garments of righteousness from Christ to cover our shame and our nakedness.

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That we may come before You holy and righteous. And where previously we had been enemies of God, deserving of Your wrath, through Christ our

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Savior, we have become friends of God, and sons and daughters, and fellow heirs of Your kingdom.

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Forgive us our sins, and may we walk in the righteousness that Christ has clothed us with.

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It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Pastor Gabe is the author of several books and Bible studies.

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Available in paperback or for your e -reader. For titles and more information, visit our website at www .wutt

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.com. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in God's Word, when we understand the text.