Synoptics 345 to 347

Crucifixion Narrative in the Synoptic Gospels

All right, we are in section 345 of the Blue Book. If you don't have a book, especially this part, it's going to be a little bit tough to follow, simply because we're doing a study of the Synoptic Gospels, and without a parallel, it's sort of hard to see where we are and where we're going.

But we are in the Crucifixion narrative, so I suppose if you found Mark 15 or Matthew 27 or Luke 23, you would be somewhere in the neighborhood anyways. And we had gotten to the Crucifixion. We had noted in passing the fact that the Gospels do not invest almost any effort whatsoever in any in-depth description.

That, in fact, in the Greek language, it is simply a sub-clause, and they crucified him. It's not even the main clause of any of the sentences. Very unlike a lot of the movies and things that are done these days.

We had noted the women at the cross. That had, unfortunately, raised questions about Roman Catholicism, which took up the rest of our time last time. So we will immediately run away from that screaming and move back to the text of 345 and the fact that there are two robbers noted in Matthew 27, Mark 15, and Luke 23.

We noted earlier that robbers is probably not the best term to be used here. That these individuals were probably somehow involved in some kind of anti-Roman insurrectionist activity of some level. Simple robbery would not be sufficient for crucifixion.

The Romans wanted to leave that for stuff that had something to do with sedition or rebellion or something along those lines. And so you have these two malefactors, these two criminals, crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left.

And then Matthew and Mark. Now, specifically, Luke just simply says, and the people stood by watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying he saved others, let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his chosen one.

The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him vinegar and saying, if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. And then Luke mentions the inscription, he puts that at a different point in his narrative than Matthew and Mark did.

Matthew and Mark specifically give us an interesting element that Luke does not. And that is that part of what was said was, you who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, if you are the son of God, come down from the cross.

Now, this is interesting. I'm going to have to ask you to wake up and think for a moment. I know that's challenging. Some of you haven't had your coffee yet, or it hasn't really kicked in, or something along those lines.

I, thankfully, have never developed that particular addiction. So I have to find other natural means of waking up in the morning, rather than the chemical means. But this statement of Jesus about destroying the temple and then raising it in three days, where is that film?

Who records that? Where? No, I'm sorry. Not here. But what are they referring to? This had to have been something that Jesus said before his arrest. Yeah, it's John chapter 2. It's John chapter 2. Yeah, yeah.

That's John chapter 2. Now, what's the significance of that? Well, the significance, for me, obviously, is that today, like, I'm going to be speaking, yeah, next Sunday, I'll be preaching in Tucson. And I'm speaking on, you know, it's a university town.

And so, everybody and their second cousin has been hit up with all sorts of standard liberalism. And the standard liberal understanding of the Gospels is that John is a ahistorical, made-up gospel that has really no meaningful connection to the historical events of Jesus' life at all.

And yet, here you have a statement, you who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross, recorded by both Mark and Matthew. Luke does not. Luke only has the, he saved others, let him save himself.

But then again, Matthew and Mark also record that as a separate statement. But here you have a statement that likewise comes up in the trial of Jesus. And yet, it's recorded for us only by John. And I find that sort of fascinating that here's, there's interconnection which seems to indicate that, as we've said a number of times, so much of the criticism of the why one gospel mentions something that another gospel doesn't assumes that we have so much more knowledge than we do as to when they were written, where they were written, who was still alive, who wasn't still alive, what was the current situation at that time.

We don't know any of that kind of stuff. And if it weren't for the rather obvious bias and prejudice that people bring against the accuracy of these accounts, that kind of stuff would be mentioned far more often.

But it's not. And instead, you get the kind of criticism that we get. So Matthew and Mark record for us this destruction of the temple statement and the mockery. The chief priests think they've won. And so they give vent to the lengthy period of frustration that has been theirs in having attempted to catch this man in his words and having been constantly themselves exposed by him.

And so there is a mockery of him being the Christ. If he is the Christ of God, literally the anointed one of God, Matthew and Mark have the king of Israel. Luke puts it, the chosen one. Come down from the cross, we may see and believe.

We will believe in him. Well, remember these are the same men who stood outside Lazarus' tomb and saw a dead man shuffle out in his grave clothes after four days and were not convinced by that other than that they needed to destroy this man.

So when people say, if I could just see, then I would believe. Well, the evidence is that is not the case at all. Notice that Matthew also has the important verse 43 of chapter 27. He trusts in God, let God deliver him now if he desires him, for he said, I am the son of God.

Now there again is a parallel to John chapter 19 where the Jews say, we have a law and by this law this man ought to die. Why? Because he made himself out to be the son of God. I've covered it many times in the past, but just once again remember if you're ever talking to our Muslim friends, they think God has sons by the tons.

And they.

The Two Criminals and the Mockery at the Cross

Will even sometimes be able to take you to various... Gospels are themselves if you included.

Absolutely everything. What was being said by Mary and the women and you know, well this particular Jewish leader said this and this particular Jewish leader said that. Again in every one of these there is, I think for us we have sort of lost the value of the economy of words because well, gigabytes and terabytes mean nothing to us anymore.

And so you can write forever and nobody cares because we've got plenty of storage and manufacturing more of it all the time so that you can, I don't know, I was looking, I was going through some checkout stand somewhere recently and I think I saw like a 16 gig jump drive for like $7 .99 or something like that, you know.

And I remember my first 650 megabyte hard drive and it was like 500 bucks, you know. And it doesn't seem all that long ago. And so we've lost the idea of conciseness of expression, but that was something that was very important in those days.

You could only write so much. The longer your book became, the harder it is to produce and the fewer people that are ever going to read it. So there's a balance that all, that has to be found. And in this balance, either because the other writers did not know of this particular story and hence this is a very, very early dating for these gospels, whatever it might be, Luke is the only one that records for us the conversion of one of the two who were crucified with him.

So Luke 23, one of the criminals who were hanged railed at him saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other rebuked him saying, do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

And we indeed justly for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, truly I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise.

Now this is an amazing, amazing story when you consider it. We have, this is all we're given. So we can speculate and run around and read things in all we want, but we're only given a matter of sentences.

We don't know this man's name. We don't know what he knew. We don't know anything about his upbringing. Was this a man who knew the scriptures and was a zealot maybe, possibly? And hence maybe saw some of the fulfillments right before his eyes and recognized.

Had he heard Jesus? We don't know. We're not told. Luke does not give us that information. You know, it's one of those things where we can somewhat jokingly say, well, we'll get to inquire about that in heaven itself and see if we can find out what the story was there.

But there is, there is a recognition on the man's part. First of all, the sinful behavior of the other man on the other cross, that he has no right to be railing at Christ. There seems to, I don't know, in my thinking, this other man's words seem to be prompted from outside himself.

In other words, it almost seems like he was trying to curry the favor of the Jewish leaders. Maybe he's hoping that they'll go ask Pilate to be merciful to him or something because he's mocking the quote unquote Messiah or something.

I don't know. Why else would he be doing this? It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. It's easy to speculate as to what might give rise to this kind of thing, especially given the situation that they're in.

Why waste your dying breaths when it's difficult enough to breathe with such kind of harangues? It is strange. But the response that is given is that of a man who recognizes his own guilt and what is about to happen to him.

And Jesus remembered me when you come into your kingdom. Well, there's got to be some kind of, well, it's either some kind of amazing supernatural revelation or pre-existing knowledge that is represented here because he recognizes kingship.

I suppose he could just read the sign above Jesus' head, but there is some idea of Christ coming into his kingdom. There's a lot more going on here that I think meets the eye and I think someday we're going to go, oh, and it's going to be fascinating.

But for most critics of the New Testament, there can't be anything like that. There can't be any depth. There can't be any background. That kind of stuff. It all has to be very surface level and simplistic.

Now, I do need to mention verse 43 because you may run into some issues regarding it. Anybody else as dry as I am today? I think the dew point is like crashing. I'm not sure. I think winter has made its arrival or about to in our valley.

What we call winter. What people back east call summer. But, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Now, I would not personally put a tremendous amount of theological weight on this one story as some people do.

For example, it's sort of a default argument that people use that baptism cannot be necessary for salvation because this man was saved without baptism. Well, okay, in a sense, I suppose, but most of the people who believe in baptismal regeneration say that there are extenuating circumstances right before death or something like that and so you end up going around in circles.

And I really don't think it was Luke's intention to discuss the necessity or non-necessity of baptism by narrating this particular story. But, what will frequently happen is that this text will end up in a discussion of the nature of the afterlife.

Because of Jesus' statement, today you will be with me in paradise. In immanency of the death of both men. And yet, there is likewise, it doesn't make any sense to say you will be with me today in paradise if there is no continuing conscious existence after death itself.

So, what happens when you talk with people who do not believe in a conscious existence after death? And there are many groups that do not. Soul sleep, various forms of annihilationism, etc., etc. Not all of them, but there are all sorts of mixtures here.

But, there are many groups that believe that when you die, you cease conscious existence until the resurrection itself. Jehovah's Witnesses are a major group. They do not believe that there is any spiritual nature to man.

That when you breathe your last, you simply cease to exist. And resurrection really isn't resurrection. It's not that which has died coming to life again. Which is what the Greek term anastasis refers to.

Which is why Paul got mocked for using that term on Mars Hill. Instead, in Jehovah's Witness theology, God remembers you and he recreates you based upon his memory of you. So, in reality, there is a disjunction between who you are now and this remembered creature that is created in the future.

That, to me, is extremely troubling when you think about it. Is that really you if you are recreated based upon God's memory of you? They have some very interesting, strange theological assertions. But, for them, since we don't have a spiritual nature, this is a problematic passage.

And so, what they do is they can't mistranslate it because it's too simple to mistranslate. But what they can do is they can change the punctuation. And so, in the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses, which they will be carrying when they come to your door, if you get into this conversation and you say, well, what about Luke 23, 43?

When they get it out, they will say, and he said to him, truly I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. So, all they did is move the comma from after you to after today. So, it's truly I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise.

Now, that will be after a thousand years or whatever else it might be, but that's how.

You get around the text. Now, I stand here in the quietness and I look at faces and then.

You said something. And there isn't. You're hanging on a cross. Every word is painful and you just, truly I say to you, not tomorrow, not yesterday, but today I say to you, you will be with me in paradise.

In case there's confusion, you know, that I'm actually going to say this to you tomorrow or I actually said it to you yesterday and then you rack your brain trying to remember what I told you yesterday, we didn't meet yesterday.

I foolishness of the position because there is no reason to say, truly I say to you today, comma, you will be with me in paradise. Why? There's just no reason for it and there is no precedent for it. Jesus said many, many times, truly, truly I say to you, comma, quote, then you have the content of the quotation.

And what would be most comforting to this new disciple would be, today, you will be with me in paradise. Not, well, maybe someday down the road, who knows when, but today you will be with me in paradise.

That is, death will not separate us and death will not separate me from those who believe in me. And so, it's an artificial editorial thing. There are no commas in the Greek, but there are certain phrases in the Greek language that function as quotation marks.

And so, when you have he answered and said to him, or John 20, 28, Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God. When we translate those, we put a comma and we put quotation marks. It didn't have those kinds of things in the Greek language at that time in history.

But there are certain set phrases that introduce those types of things. And this is a set phrase that you could give example after example after example after example. Where once you have to you, you then have the content of the statement being given.

And so, the real way to respond to it is all other English translations by all other English translators have the comma here. This is why you prove, you bear the burden of providing the positive proof as to why there is the insertion of an absolutely completely unnecessary never before seen temporal indicator in this context at this point in time.

And of course, they can't because it's the only reason they've done it is because they are translating according to their theology. And that's the essence of the neural translation anyways. So, I thought I would mention it to you.

Yes, sir. In responding to that. Yeah, but they know about that one too. They, if you feel comfortable discussing the difference between, you know, what is Sheol, Hades, Hell, the bosom of Abraham, and issues like that.

Okay. They're ready to go there and they've got a lot of things they want to throw out. They consider Luke 16 to be a parable and hence not something to be turned into a proof text regarding continuation of conscience existence after death.

And so, you're going to have to deal with, is this a parable? Is it not a parable? What's the nature of a parable? Can a parable teach these things? So, I'm not sure that it will get you where you want to go.

If that's the direction you want to go, fine. If this is sort of a side issue, you want to get back to something else, then you don't want to go there. So, I've heard a few theories. Well, see, the problem is the use of the term Hell.

There are, in fact, I'm going to get some more water and keep talking while I'm walking. There are, in fact, all sorts of creedal statements from the early church. The problem is what you understand by the term Hell.

The term Gehenna is normally the term translated as Hell. But unfortunately, the King James especially introduced a number of confusing texts because it translated Hades, Hades, which is the New Testament equivalent of Sheol, the realm of the dead, as Hell as well.

And so, it sort of conflated all of these together and that's led to a fair amount of confusion on the part of many people. Specifically, Sheol and Hades, the realm of the dead, the rich man is in a place of torment that at that point in time is a part of Hades, but so is Paradise.

Both are a part of Hades. So, you could say that Jesus went to Hades, but it was the Paradiso, the paradise portion of the realm of the dead, not the punishment portion. Now, the question is, there are many who would look at Paul's statement, the Jesus led captivity captive.

The statement that Paul makes for me to die is to be in the presence of the Lord. And most would understand that that paradise is now in the presence of Christ. And so, there has been a transferal of that, if we wanted to call it a location, so that those who are in Christ are immediately in his presence upon their death rather than in a paradise place that is described in Luke chapter 16.

So, when the early church talked about descended into Hell, it's descended into the realm of the dead, not into the place of punishment, however. Now, there may have been some who had that concept, but biblically there's no indication of that other than leading captivity captive, which would be to not removing people from punishment, but leading those who are in paradise to be in his presence and then that's where we go as well when we die.

So, that's what's being referred to. And there are Word of Faith teachers in our day that teach that Jesus descended into Hell itself and suffered there for three days and then was born again out of Hell.

I remember back in the 90s playing some Word of Faith teachers for you on my big, it was a cassette tape player, you remember, because I remember you asking, I don't know why, it was a dark, rainy day and I was playing something by Kenneth Copeland and you asked a question.

Isn't that weird how you remember things like that? But, it was one of those dual deck cassette tape, any young people here, anyone young enough to, yeah, cassette tape. And I played some stuff from Copeland and the various Word of Faith guys on their born-again Jesus stuff.

And so, there are people who will take that, but there's just nothing in Scripture whatsoever about that. And it contradicts Jesus' statement. Yeah, well, look, there's always a way around something. You know, from their perspective they would say what he was saying was finished was what he intended to accomplish at that point and that, I'm not going to try to defend it, I'm just simply saying that you can, as long as you don't really practice solo scriptura, you can create stuff out here, read into Scripture and come up with your stuff.

It's just, the real issue is are you deriving your beliefs from the text of Scripture or are you coming up with them out here and forcing them into various texts of Scripture? That really, and the only way to see that is over time and over the consistency with which you handle the Word of God.

But yes, I would agree, that would contradict that very, very strongly. So, anyway, I just wanted you to be aware of what is in Luke 23, in case it ever comes up, at least you can say, you know, we talked about that once.

The Death of Jesus and Psalm 22

Alright, section 347, the death of Jesus. Now, once again, as I've mentioned, the Synoptic Gospels are united in saying now from the 6th hour there was darkness over all land until the 9th hour. At the 9th hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.

And we know that there is a, somewhat of a difference in the timing in John, because John is using Roman timing and the Synoptics are using Jewish timing. So Jewish timing would be from sunrise, so this would be somewhere around 3 o 'clock in the afternoon would be the 9th hour.

And so there is darkness over the whole land until the 9th hour. Now, there has been lots of speculation as to what that means. You know, people have tried to connect this to solar eclipses and all sorts of other things like that.

It seems to me to be a very clearly placed within the context of a supernatural event. I don't know whether we should necessarily be looking for a naturalistic explanation, looking through charts and stuff to see what was flying around space at that particular point in time.

Especially because as Luke records it, until the 9th hour, while the sun's light failed and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Now again, what you'll hear people say is, there is no evidence of that.

Where else is there a recording of the tearing of the curtain of the temple? Well, who on earth is going to record it? Have you thought about that? The Jews ain't going to record it. I mean, there's only going to be a certain number of people in the inner circle of the temple that are going to know what happened to the veil in the temple, right?

There's only certain people who had access to that area in the temple. I mean, guess what? When that Messiah guy died out there, the veil in the temple was torn in two. No, they're not going to tell anybody about that.

So who else is going to know? There was no CNN. There wasn't anybody running around with cell phones. Oh, look at this. And yet there are serious people with doctorates who will stand in front of the university classes this coming spring.

I guarantee you, before the resurrection Sunday, there's going to be professors who are going to stand up there, and the level of their criticism is going to be like, well, the gospel says the veil was, but that's the only thing that records it.

Who can believe that? Okay, well, that's deep. And the minds filled with mush sitting in front of them are going to go, oh, yeah, and that's how it goes. I'm sorry. Do forgive me if you are of the generation of minds filled with mush, but I know that God still has his people amongst the millennials, but they do seem to be a small remnant.

It's just, wow. What's the official beginning of the millennials? Anywhere in the 80s? You don't look like a millennial. I'm sorry. Your total is 91? I don't know. I don't even know. There is no official, obviously, but I'm just sitting here going, especially with what's going on right now in the universities, some of the universities and stuff.

I just want to go, it used to be what I would do is I would think, well, they're going to have to graduate, and then they're going to have to get a job, and they're going to have to pay taxes, and they'll grow up eventually.

It doesn't seem to be the case anymore. It seems to be institutionalized infanthood forever. It's just shocking to me, the things that we're seeing. It really, really is. I don't know. Each generation, it's taking longer and longer and longer to reach adulthood, and I'm not even sure that this generation wants to get there.

It's frightening. I don't know. I'm sorry. Just a word of frustration leaking out here. As we're looking at this, I've got just enough time to make a comment. At about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, this man is calling for Elijah. Now, very quickly, I do hope that when you, if you ever encounter a Muslim who cites this text, and they cite it all the time.

It is one of the known texts for Muslims to use against Christianity. They will say this clearly proves Jesus is not God because he's calling out to God, because they don't understand father and son. This proves that the gospels are corrupted because Jesus would have been a brave man, not the coward that he's showing himself to be in these words.

This shows a division between father and son. So this can't be God's word. This has to be man's word. It has to be corruption, etc., etc. There's a lot of different levels of confusion that they elicit on the basis of this text.

In 80 of the debates that I have done over the past few years, this text has come up normally during audience questions. And as soon as I hear it, I start smiling and I'm excited and I'm happy. Because depending on how much time I've been given to answer audience questions, I'll have between two and three minutes to preach the gospel to this Muslim in a way they've never, ever heard it before.

But you've got to know how to do it. And this also raises a big theological issue. There will be many sermons preached in just a matter of months about how the father turned his back upon the son on the cross because God cannot look upon sin.

And this is when Jesus became sin. And so the father turned his back upon the son and this is the son crying out in his loneliness, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And there are some great theologians and preachers that have preached that sermon, but you've never heard me preach that sermon.

You haven't because I won't because I don't believe it. I can't believe it. If there was a biblical basis for saying the father at any point abandoned, turned his back upon the son, it would have to be found in the narratives of the crucifixion or in the discussion of those passages in Romans, Galatians, and especially Hebrews.

Nowhere. Nowhere. The very next words of Jesus on the cross, no matter how you put them all together, are in second person. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, whatever else it might be. He shows no idea of separation from the father at all.

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani are the first words of Psalm 22. And when we celebrate the Lord's Supper very often, I will read the 22nd Psalm. Why? Because it's a messianic psalm. And the prophecies and descriptions even of crucifixion itself found in Psalm 22 are startling and amazing.

But even more so is how the psalm ends. It ends with the vindication of this suffering servant. Now you must remember that the Psalter was the hymn book of the Jewish people. They knew it far better than we know the Trinity Hymnal, because there's a bunch of hymns in the Trinity Hymnal we've never sung.

There weren't any in the Psalter that any Jewish person had not sung. They had all sung every one of them. All 150. And so to say, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, would be the same thing as our saying something like amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

Or before Jehovah's awful throne. Or whatever other, you know, how sweet and awesome is the play. Whatever other beginning phrase of a well-known song that the community knows together, it's meant to bring to mind the entirety of that psalm or that song or whatever else it might be.

And so I think people have just completely missed it in missing the Old Testament background that Jesus is bringing to mind the 22nd Psalm, which has its greatest fulfillment when? Right then and then only.

And it ends with the vindication of that servant. And so I am, I get very, when I hear all about the Father abandoning the Son at the Son's very highest point of obedience to the Father. I have a problem with disrupting the Godhead when the Godhead is actually accomplishing what the Godhead had eternally decreed to accomplish.

And I find absolutely no basis for it anywhere else in scripture. And so when there is a much more logical meaning, and that is, this is Psalm 22 being quoted. And that's what people would have understood it to mean.

I have some issues there. I have some issues with that, the utilization of that text. And I have yet to hear someone present that viewpoint that then likewise presented my viewpoint and provide a response to it.

I've never heard that. I've never heard that. So when the Muslims bring it up, I love to be able to proclaim the Trinity to them, explain that we don't believe that Jesus is the Father. He's the Son. This is the Son speaking to the Father.

This is the Son quoting Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is messianic. Look at it. All the prophecies of crucifixion, which your Koran denies, which means you've got your Koran contradicting prophetic fulfilled scripture.

And then you've got an open door to the presentation of the fact that He will be justified because He was raised from the dead and His sacrifice was accepted. Oh, it's great. It's wonderful. And that happened again this last trip to South Africa, by the way.

I had the opportunity of doing that yet again. So keep that in mind. That opportunity might present itself to you. All right. We went a little bit over. Let's close the Word of Prayer. Father, we are thankful for this time when once again we can study Your Word.

We thank You for preserving it for us. We ask that even now as we go into worship, that we will do so with hearts prepared to meet You and to hear from Your truth. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.