Sermon: Truly, The Son of God

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top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

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And coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

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When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said,

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Truly, this was the Son of God. There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed

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Jesus from Galilee, ministering to Him, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

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When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus.

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He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock.

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And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other

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Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word.

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Let's pray together. God, Your Word is a gift to Your people.

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Thank You for revealing Yourself to us. Thank You, God, for preserving Your Word throughout history with and for Your people.

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God, You say, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever. This is

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Your very Word. It's Your revelation. It's You speaking. And so we humble ourselves before You, Lord, acknowledging that this is the voice of our

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Creator. You are the only God, the first, the last, the beginning, and the end.

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And this is Your voice. And so, Lord, we thank You that we have Your revelation in our hands, that we have this free access to it.

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And God, we pray that You'd teach today by Your Spirit that You would get the teacher out of the way, that You'd guide by Your Spirit, and that God, Your people would remember and proclaim what they've learned from Your Word today, and they'd forget me.

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In Jesus' name, amen. So here we are in Matthew 27.

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This is what is referred to as the passion scene, the scene of the passion. This is where we are finally seeing that climactic moment that was prophesied long before this moment took place.

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It's very important for us to recognize that we talk about it all the time. It's been a part of all the messages that we've been giving throughout

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Matthew is that this is really the continuation of God's story. This isn't something that falls out of the sky that was supposed to surprise anybody.

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What's taking place in the scene of the passion right here of the Messiah is something that was foretold by God long before it took place.

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It's very important for us to recognize that because this is one unified revelation.

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We often refer to it as the Old Testament, New Testament. Some people like to call it the Older Testament and the

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Newer Testament. We oftentimes think of divisions between the Old Testament and New Testament in a way that is honestly really unhealthy.

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This is the revelation of the one true God. It represents a singular story in history.

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And why is it so important for us to recognize that? Because if we don't recognize the fact that this is God's revelation, it's

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His one unified story that He's telling throughout history where He is actually bringing about all of the things that He desires for His glory and for our good.

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If we fail to recognize that, we're gonna actually miss some of the amazing details that God puts in place in real time and in real space.

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So we talked about it before when Jesus is crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

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We talked about the fact that that's something that Jewish people were singing centuries before this event took place.

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If they would just go back to that psalm and start singing it along with Jesus on the cross, they would literally be singing about all of the events transpiring in front of them.

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Only that psalm was written about 1 ,000 years before it took place. If we don't recognize that this is

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God's unified revelation, that it's God telling the story in history that brings about His glory, we're gonna miss a lot of details that are here in terms of the veil being torn.

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And just what is so significant about the Messiah dying and tombs being opened and then after Christ's resurrection, you have these holy ones, these saints that are walking around Jerusalem days later?

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Why is that something that takes place? Is it just a weird thing that takes place in this religious text?

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Or is this actually part of God's story? You see, all these things are supposed to be signs to the

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Jewish people and to the watching world that this Messiah's death and ultimately His resurrection was the centerpiece of God's story about history.

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It's really what history is all about. God creates the world. He creates His image in the world.

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He does this marvelous act of creation. For what purpose? To bring glory to Himself.

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Through the redemption of people that don't deserve it. I mean, think about the fact that we know the story of creation.

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We know about all the unique and marvelous detail of creation and all of the just glory of God in His creativity.

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It is powerful, but we also know more from His revelation. What do we know? We know that it says that Jesus Christ was the

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Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. So before the world was even laid, before God created this whole thing, everything you see around us, every detail of the stars that are billions and billions of light years away, before God did all of that,

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He had a purpose for it. It wasn't ultimately about us. It was about Him and His glory. And so this is one unified revelation.

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And so we can understand because God has spoken in history why it's such an amazing detail that the lights go out this day in this moment when the light of the world is extinguished on that cross, the world goes dark, earthquake, lights out, veil being torn, the separation between God and His people.

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This stuff is not taking place merely in the heavenly places. It's taking place in the dirt.

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It's taking place with flesh and blood. It's taking place with us. It's so important because the kingdom of God is a reality that is all -encompassing.

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The rule of God isn't something that just takes place in this invisible world out there.

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It's not these just lofty spiritual discussions which the pagans have, their mythology.

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This isn't in accord with that. This is God stepping into history, God becoming man, and He's walking among us.

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And the kingdom of God and everything that comes with the kingdom of God is happening in real time and space.

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The earth itself is feeling the effects of the Messiah's passion and His death. But if you don't understand this is

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God's revelation, it's His one unified story, you're gonna miss a lot of details. Like, for example, we're gonna talk in a minute about the fact that Joseph of Arimathea, a man who's a member of the council, the

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Sanhedrin, the same Sanhedrin that actually conspired to have Jesus delivered over to death, he didn't agree with it, of course, but he comes as a rich man to bury

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Jesus crucified with the wicked, to bury Him in his own tomb, a rich man's tomb.

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Ah, you see, if you know this is God's unified story, it's His one revelation in history, then you'll read the story like this and recognize

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Matthew knows what's going on. He's telling you the eyewitness testimony of what took place with Jesus, but he also, he's a fan of Isaiah.

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It's clear in Matthew. He's a big fan of Isaiah. He's quoting him often. And so when he includes the story of Jesus being crucified with criminals and then being buried in a rich man's tomb, he knows what he's doing.

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And if you know the revelation of God, you know this is a unified story and it's glorious.

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God is shouting to the world, not just through the bloodshed of the Messiah, but they're all the symbols that are coming alive in this moment.

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This is an incredible thing. And here's one thing I want you to consider. One of the great testimonies to the fact that this is divine revelation is that, listen, you've got 39 books of the

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Old Testament revelation written over a period of over, probably close to 2 ,000 years in composition, depending on how you date the book of Job.

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But you got 39 different books of the Old Testament. You've got this written over different geographical locations over probably 2 ,000 years of history.

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And these people are just people like you who are walking with God, they're prophets receiving revelation from God.

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And I got to say this, they're writing things at times that they could not possibly understand.

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Like for example, the Psalm 22 that tells you the passion of the Messiah. You think the psalmist truly understood, like really understood what exactly he was writing about?

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This is divine revelation. Crucifixion wasn't even a thing a thousand years before Christ.

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It was the Romans who invented that. They pierced my hands and my feet. For my clothing, they cast lots.

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They wag their heads at me. All of that, my heart is like wax melted within me.

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All of that written long before Jesus. This is divine revelation. And here you have this historical narrative, this story of Jesus in history, in our dirt, in our world, under our sky.

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You have it taking place. And at every single point, there's an intersection where the word of God comes right into it, colliding with it.

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Like, oh, there it is. There is that fulfillment. Oh, there's the real meaning in Jesus dying with the criminals, being buried in a rich man's tomb.

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Oh, that's something that God said before. And we didn't even see it coming. We didn't even see it coming.

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Why? Because we're creatures and this is truly divine. This is from God, only the creator, who sustains the universe, who holds it all together, who is actually the one who writes the story of history.

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Only he could do something like this. Have you ever sampled pagan mythology?

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Have you ever looked at it, read it? It's so hard to even follow at times because it's a mishmash of legend and mythology and drivel.

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It doesn't make any sense at times. It's just a hodgepodge of nonsense.

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And with the word of God, you have this consistent revelation throughout history brought about by so many different authors over so many different locations, and it's a powerfully unified story.

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It's very important. Let's highlight some differences here. Very important here as you look at the text. In 2754, look what the text says.

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After what we did last week about the holy ones appearing in the city, raised from the dead out of the tombs, in verse 54, it says, "'When the centurion and those who were with him, "'keeping watch over Jesus, "'saw the earthquake and what took place, "'they were filled with awe and said, "'Truly, this was the son of God.'"

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Truly, this was the son of God. This is dangerous, by the way. When Matthew wrote this, to write these words, to have it come back to him, or any of the other gospels, to have it come back to them would have meant the death penalty.

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To even talk about Jesus and Roman centurions and guards saying this sort of thing about Jesus is not something that's allowed in Rome under the emperor.

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The emperor believed that he was God. He desired to be worshiped. You had to say,

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Caesar Kyrios, Caesar is Lord, not Jesus is Lord, but also the Caesars were known, after the first Caesar, as sons of the

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God. Son of the God. That's how they were known. Caesar was seen as God, as deified.

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There were temples in Rome where you could go and offer incense and you could actually worship the emperor.

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You were actually, in many respects, required to give that pinch of incense to see him as ultimate, as deity.

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But Caesar himself was called son of the God. So to pen these words was an act of treason.

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To tell this kind of story in itself was a brave act of courageous treason in Rome.

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We take it for granted now as Christians because we know the identity of Jesus. He's the eternal son of God. Jesus is the son of God.

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We know that, but we take it for granted that when this was penned, this was an act of treason. But there are some differences.

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You've got four different gospels, and sometimes you'll have one witness of a gospel give more details that might make more sense for a

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Gentile convert. You might have one writer of a gospel give some surrounding details, the other one leaves out.

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That's kind of the good thing about multiple eyewitness testimonies is you'll see differences in what one person emphasizes over another.

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It's a powerful testimony of the unified revelation we have and the witnesses of the New Testament.

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But there are some differences. So for example, in Matthew 27, 54, Matthew emphasizes a point that Mark doesn't emphasize.

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Matthew emphasizes that the centurion and those who were with him were filled with awe, and the confession was truly this was the son of God.

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If you read Mark, Mark 15, 39, Mark only emphasizes the centurion, his testimony.

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What he says, Matthew, obviously a Jewish mindset, he's writing for a Jewish audience, he wants to emphasize possibly what is the standard of the law of God and that you need multiple witnesses, two to three witnesses.

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Maybe that's what's going on with Matthew, he's emphasizing that part for a reason with his Jewish audience.

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But there are some differences. Mark emphasizes the one centurion, and sorry,

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Matthew emphasizes the fact that you have the centurion and those with him. So here's the point for Matthew. You have these

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Roman centurions, guards, and they are on the death watch.

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They are watching these men on the cross suffocate, bleed, scream, they're in pain, and they're on the death watch.

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They're waiting for these men to die. Their job is to kill these men and to make sure it hurts and to make sure they make a spectacle out of them.

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This was one of the most effective ways to keep the public under the boot of Rome.

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If you go this far, this is what's gonna take place. And it was done in the public square. It was done in the open.

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And these centurions, these Romans are specialists. They are there to make sure they suffer and they suffer horrifically and that they actually die, that this is seen through to the end.

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But for Matthew, these men on the death watch working for Rome to make sure these men die, they are actually present to witness all the powerful things happening in creation.

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The earth going dark. They would have been too far away from the veil itself to even see what was going on there.

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So that's not a part of that. But they were there for the earthquake. They were there for Christ and his statements. They were there for the darkness.

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They were there and they witnessed all of this. And Matthew says that they were filled with awe.

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Now there is also something interesting here. If you read Matthew's accounts, he emphasizes the fact that the centurion and the guard say that truly this was the son of God.

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But in Luke's account, Luke 23, 47, for whatever reason, Luke emphasizes their intention, what they said as truly this was an innocent man.

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Truly this was a righteous man. But here's what we need to pay attention to with Matthew's account.

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The dangerous nature of this confession. The dangerous nature of this confession and this witness.

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As I emphasize, Caesar was called son of the God. So the first Caesar called a

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God. This next Caesar is called son of the God. So this is a concept, a counterfeit obviously from the enemy of the

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Lord Jesus. But the testimony is truly this was the son of God.

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Can I have you guys think about something really powerful for a second here? God promises in his word long before Jesus comes that continued revelation.

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What's he promise? He promises that the Messiah is gonna come. This ruler is gonna come into the world and he will be given a kingdom that will never pass away.

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He has an authority that is ultimate and he is gonna draw every tribe, tongue, people and nation to God.

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That's Daniel 7, 13 through 14. What's it say? He is one like the son of man and he comes up to the ancient of days and was presented before him and to him is given dominion and a kingdom.

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And what is gonna take place with the Messiah? Something very different than what took place with the

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Jewish people where God says you, I chose you, not

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Israel, not because you were more numerous, not because you are more powerful.

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There's nothing in Israel that drew God's affection to them. He said that I loved you and I chose you.

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And so God chose to bring salvation to the world through God's chosen people,

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Israel. But God also said that what he was gonna do with Israel is he was going to judge the covenant breakers in Israel.

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He was gonna punish them. He was gonna bring salvation and that salvation would extend not just to Jews but to Gentiles also.

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Jew and Gentile into one people of God. So the Jews, if they know the revelation of God, they know that they are supposed to be the conduit for God's salvation into the world because they were the ones that were heralding the message of Yahweh, the law of Yahweh and they were the means by which

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God would bring Messiah into the world. And notice, notice something.

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It was the Jewish covenant breaking people that Jesus keeps indicting here in this gospel.

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Matthew, we read it, right? Matthew 19 through 25 is just filled with the indictments that Jesus gives against the

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Jewish covenant breakers of his day. You know the scene. Matthew 23, the seven woes of Jesus upon the leadership of Jerusalem.

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He says, woe to you, woe to you, woe to you, a curse on you, a curse on you, a curse on you.

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And then who is it that delivers Jesus over to? Herod and Pilate. Who is it? It's the

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Jewish leadership. It's the Jewish leadership. It's those covenant breaking Jewish people who deliver

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Jesus over to be crucified. And when Pilate says he's innocent, who shall

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I give you? They say, Barabbas. What shall I do with him? They say, crucify him.

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Give us the murderer. Crucify our Messiah. Give us the murderer. That's the story.

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But interestingly, that's the story that God always told in the Old Testament. We'll do some of that in a moment here so you can see that it is anticipated that God would come into the world, that he would bring his kingdom, and that salvation would come with judgment for the covenant breakers.

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But don't you think it's powerful? Again, watch this. One unified revelation. That when

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Jesus dies, as was anticipated, as was promised, when he dies, are you ready?

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The first recorded confession of faith is from a

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Gentile, not a Jew. And God promised that he was gonna bring salvation, not just to the

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Jews, but to every tribe, tongue, people, nation, language. He was gonna bring salvation to the entire world.

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And also, remember Psalm 22? I just quoted it. Remember that? My God, my

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God, why have you forsaken me? And that's the psalm that says his hands and his feet would be pierced, his heart like wax melted with them, that they would cast lots for his garments and divide them.

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That's the same psalm that as you keep reading it, you keep singing it, it says all the families of the earth will return to worship

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Yahweh. And here we have Jesus dying, experiencing what was prophesied, and the first person to say that confession of faith of who he truly is, is a

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Gentile who is guilty of murdering him. It's a powerful testimony to the word of God.

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Truly, this was the son of God. First confession of faith was a Gentile. Matthew knows the story, he knows the story of God.

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He knows what he wants to communicate. This is fulfillment. Isaiah is

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Matthew's favorite, so that's clearly where he's drawing some of his story from. But I wanna point out to you that Jesus said in John 12, 32, some of you guys know this, he said, if I am lifted up,

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I will draw all people to myself. If I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.

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And here is Jesus being lifted up. And the first confession of faith, when it's witnessed, is by a

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Gentile. This is fulfillment. I want you to see it with your own eyes, so go to Isaiah 65. Isaiah 65.

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We've talked about this before as we've been going through Matthew. I won't read the entire section here, but I just want you to see it as it opens up.

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Isaiah 65, this is written about 700 years before Jesus. God says, I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me.

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I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, here I am, here I am to a nation that was not called by my name.

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I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices.

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A people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks, who sit in tombs and spend the night in secret places, who eat pig's flesh and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels who say, keep to yourself.

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Do not come near me for I am too holy for you. These are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all the day.

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Behold, it is written before me, I will not keep silent, but I will repay. I will indeed repay into their lap, both your iniquities and your father's iniquities together, says the

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Lord. So here God is speaking clearly to his people about their sins, their violations of his law, their breaking of covenants.

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And what he ends up saying here, if you move ahead, in verse 12,

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I will destine you to the sword and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter because when I called, you did not answer, and when

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I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in my eyes and chose what I did not delight in.

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Therefore, so there's the word to the covenant breakers. And then God says, therefore, thus says the

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Lord God, behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry.

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Behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame.

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Behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart and shall wail for breaking of spirit.

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You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse and the

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Lord God will put you to death, but his servants he will call by another name.

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So the anticipation for the people of God should have been that there was gonna be judgment upon covenant breakers and there was gonna be

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God giving his people a new name, there was gonna be a destruction of the old order and there was gonna be the introduction of a new covenant.

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They were anticipating it, they were waiting for it. And now we have the death of the Messiah, that old order defunct and over with now, that veil is torn, now we have access to God because Jesus passed through for us and opened up the way to God for the people of God.

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Now we have access to God's presence and now we have what? Covenant breakers judged ultimately and you have

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God's people eating, drinking, not thirsting. And that message goes out to all the world now, not just to Jews, but to Gentiles also.

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And so we can also see as this centurion confesses that truly this was the son of God, we can see that fulfillment of Daniel 7, 13 through 14 and we can see the anticipation of what?

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Matthew 28, 18 through 20. All authority in heaven and where on earth has been given to me and he says, go therefore make disciples of what?

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All the nations. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the

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Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you and lo, I'm with you always even to the end of the age.

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So we can see with the centurion's confession, this anticipation of what Jesus is going to tell his disciples to do and that's what?

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Now go get the nations. Now go get the nations. Now, let's just,

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I don't wanna spend too much time on this today but I think we should take note of it in Matthew 27, 55 through 56.

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Go there. Doug, can I get a tissue? I'm allergic to someone in the front row here, probably

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Daniel. Just kidding. I'm allergic to your taste in movies, that's for sure.

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Thank you for that. He absolutely hates when I do that. So I'll keep it up, okay.

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I'm just teasing. So Matthew 27, 55 through 56, here's what it says.

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There were also many women there looking on from a distance who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were

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Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. Now I could do an entire message just in this section but I really want to emphasize to the women of our church and to all the women hearing this, something that's very peculiar about what's happening here in the text.

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Now it's not right, it's not okay, it's not biblical, it's not part of God's law how the

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Jewish people via their man -made tradition had started to treat women in the first century.

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It isn't right, it isn't good, it's not part of God's law. The way that people treated women in the first century, treating them as lower, not equal, saying things like, you need 100 men's testimony to every, or sorry, 100 women's testimony to every one man's testimony in court because women were notoriously unreliable according to them.

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It's not okay, it's not part of God's law, it's not part of the biblical worldview. Don't you think it's powerful that in the record itself,

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Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we have the women disciples of Jesus emphasized in this moment over against the other disciples.

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It's the women disciples who are emphasized here at this moment, the centurion says, truly this was the son of God, but it's a part of the biblical revelation to emphasize that it's the women who are standing close by.

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There is such a connection to Jesus with these women followers, and such, obviously, an understanding of his nature, his love for his people, the kind of perfection that he was as a man, that there's something about Jesus that draws these women disciples to him, they cannot disconnect from him in the way that many of his disciples did.

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The men, more courageous in many respects than the men were, but Matthew emphasizes, the women are there, here's who they were, they were witnesses, and Matthew's doing that on purpose.

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He's giving you the women witnesses, which, in this generation, and at this time, is not something that you're apt to do.

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Why? Because you're fighting a cultural battle where people say, well, that's insignificant, why don't you get some men in there as witnesses?

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Why don't you have them as the stars of the story? Here's the reason that it's not like that, because that's not how it happened.

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It was the women, and it's the women who are there, it is the women who are part of the burial process, it is the women who are standing by the grave when it's all said and done, and the stone is rolled into place, it's women, women, women.

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That's powerful testimony to the truthfulness of the gospel, because if you're trying to conjure up a fake story, you don't use witnesses that don't matter to everybody.

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You emphasize something else. If you are a charlatan, if you're creating religious fiction, you're gonna make your story pop.

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This doesn't make the story pop, unless you have the mind of Christ. It's the women.

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So think about what Matthew is doing. He's doing something here that is just honest about who

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Jesus is and how amazing he is. Think about it. It's women witnesses at the cross and at the resurrection.

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It's the women who come to tell the other disciples, uh, he's alive, right?

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The guys are just hanging out somewhere else. But notice the story about Jesus is so different than man -made religion, in that it will not placate to the lies and the traditions of men, no matter how closely held they are.

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It just tells the truth. The Bible tells the truth about your heroes. Think about it.

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All of our heroes in scripture, I mean, you gotta be careful sometimes reading the book of Genesis to your kids, amen?

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Amen? Uh, what's Lot's daughters doing with them daddy in the cave? Um, let's watch

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Morphel for a little bit and let's get back to that later. You know what I mean? I mean, it tells the truth.

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It tells the truth about their failures and their face plants. Like Moses can't even go to the promised land. David, a man after God's own heart and he completely blows it.

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Completely blows it. It's just honesty, honesty, honesty. It never whitewashes their sins.

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It tells it as it is. And one of the things that is spectacular about this revelation, it is so counter to what the

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Jewish sensitivities were and the mindset about women in their day. In that, it's not normative.

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It's not normative for Jews of this day to appreciate the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the women, and the

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Gentiles as centerpieces of the story, right? Use somebody else.

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We don't like the fact that you got tax collectors and prostitutes hanging out with you. Why? Because we're holier than that.

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Don't come near me, I'm too holy. God says it's like smoke in my nostrils. I'm gonna destroy you for that.

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It's the broken tax collectors and the hookers coming to Jesus and feeling like they can actually be with him.

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There's something about his graciousness and his love that actually drew those kinds of people to him.

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And there's something about Jesus and his affections and his character that drew women to him in such a way that they could not bear being away from him and they're watching this gruesome act and they have to be there because they just want to be close to Jesus.

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But you don't do that if you're creating religious fiction. You don't highlight hookers and tax collectors and women and Gentiles.

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Jews were like, Gentiles are ew. Keep them away from me. They violate

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God's law. They're disgraceful, disgusting. They're less than us. And you've got the first confession of faith in the book written to the

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Jews with the Jewish mindset saying it's a centurion that says truly this was the son of God and it's the women who were not letting go of Jesus.

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This is divine revelation. Because again, if you're trying to create religious fiction, you don't use these people as the stars of the show.

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Next, let's read 2757. When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea named

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Joseph who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate, ordered it.

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He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in clean linen shroud and laid it in his own tomb which he had cut in the rock and he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.

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Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there sitting opposite of the tomb. Now, something that we need to highlight here is that Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the council, he was a part of the

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Sanhedrin, and he clearly is a devoted follower of God because this is during the time of Passover but the law of God in Deuteronomy 21, 23 would have forbidden them to extend having his body up for a long period of time.

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Deuteronomy 21, 23 says you must have a prompt, quick burial, like same day.

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And so Joseph of Arimathea loves the law of God, he wants to be obedient to God. He's following Jesus and so he wants to have him buried right away.

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Again, he was a member of the Sanhedrin council but I want you to see for yourselves, this is Matthew, let's move over to Luke.

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Go to Luke 23, Luke 23, 50.

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Luke 23, 50. Now Luke 23, 50, here's

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Luke's account. Now there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man who had not consented to their decision and action and he was looking for the kingdom of God.

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This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him on a tomb cut out of stone where no one had yet been laid.

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It was a day of preparation and the Sabbath was coming. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid.

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Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath, they rested according to the commandment.

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So what do you see? Luke actually adds details that Matthew doesn't have. Luke adds the detail that what?

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Joseph of Arimathea was a good and righteous man. He says he didn't agree with the Sanhedrin.

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He wasn't on their side in this and so he goes to Pilate and that's a risk by the way to ask for the body of Jesus.

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Here you've got the Jewish leadership opposed to Jesus. They're calling him a deceiver.

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They're calling him a counterfeit. Joseph of Arimathea is a member of the council. He's on that Sanhedrin but he's taking a very public risk by actually now advocating for Jesus and a proper burial of Jesus and so he actually goes to Pilate to ask for his body.

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This is risky behavior. It really is risky behavior for Joseph of Arimathea.

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But notice that Joseph did not agree with the council so apparently the

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Sanhedrin, when they had been called together to come and conspire against Jesus, they hand -selected people they thought would agree with them because Joseph of Arimathea didn't actually agree.

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He wasn't on board with what they were doing. Now go to see Luke's account. So Matthew, Mark, and Luke just go back.

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Luke, Mark's account, Mark 15, more details. In Mark 15, 42, it says this.

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And when evening had come, since it was a day of preparation, that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage, see it?

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He took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. We forget those little details of history, right?

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Like Joseph of Arimathea went to ask for the body of Pilate, like no big deal. It took what, according to the text?

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Courage. It took courage, I'm sure, on a number of levels, not just for the Jews, but with Pilate also.

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And it says this. Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died.

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And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. And when he had learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph.

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So, this is an interesting little detail. Pilate's actually surprised that Jesus has already died.

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Crucifixion is something that could have taken hours to days to endure, to actually die, to complete the process of death.

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So Pilate is actually surprised that Jesus is already dead. How did that take place?

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How did Jesus die so quickly? Well, we can't forget the fact that Jesus took the body of the cross and took a very, very grotesque and brutal beating before he went to the cross.

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Not everybody got the kind of beating that Jesus got. Pilate wanted them to beat Jesus severely so that they would feel sorry for Jesus to let him go because he thought

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Jesus was innocent, so much so that he washed his hands in front of all of them to say, I find no fault in him.

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He was trying to have Jesus escape this judgment. But now he goes to the cross.

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He can't even carry the cross all the way there, so they actually have to have someone carry the cross for Jesus, but now they crucify him.

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He's suffocating on that cross, but Pilate's still kind of surprised. How did he die already?

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You die from suffocation on that cross. How did he die already? We get more details from John, so go with me now to John 19.

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John 19, 31. John 19, 31.

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Here's what John records for us. Since it was a day of preparation and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the

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Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

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So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him.

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But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.

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But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and at once there came out blood and water.

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He who saw it has borne witness. His testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth, that you may also believe.

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For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled. Not one of his bones will be broken. And again, another scripture says, they will look on him whom they have pierced.

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So John records that they wanted to rush the death along.

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And the way to do it was as these men are trying to gasp for air, pushing up on a nail going through their ankles, they're gasping for air, trying to breathe, and then slumping back down because of the pain that's going throughout their entire body.

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It's excruciating, out of the cross kind of pain. That's what the word excruciating means, out of the cross.

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They are fighting for air, and then they are slumping back down again. And the way to speed the process along to make them suffocate is to break their legs.

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Break their legs so they can no longer push up. Now, the interesting thing is long before Jesus came, the

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Jews were told on Passover, do not break the legs, the bones of the

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Passover lamb. It must be with no spot and no blemish, and don't break its bones.

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So now these Roman soldiers, they come to these men who are on the cross, and here is

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Jesus, the lamb of God with no spot or blemish, and they break the bones of the criminals next to Jesus to suffocate them, but when they come to Jesus, they say, okay, he's already dead.

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But they're responsible on a death watch. Their life is on the line. If they don't complete this execution, they will be executed.

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So just to make sure that Jesus is really dead, they take a spear and they shove it through his side.

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It clearly pierces his heart sac because blood and water flow out, which fulfills

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Psalm 22, my heart is like wax, it is melted within me.

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It's all fulfillment, it's all fulfillment. But that's why Pilate was shocked. He's already dead?

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Well, yeah, we broke their legs, but we came to him, he's already dead. We pierced through his side, though, his heart burst.

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He's really dead. So that's the story as you cross -reference all the gospel narratives and those witnesses to see this is what took place.

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But, remember I told you, this is God's revelation in history, it's one unified message.

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You see all these intersections and connecting points with the word of God, with the symbolism, with the direct prophecy and quotes from the

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Old Testament that they couldn't have possibly understood. But isn't it interesting? That Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, a wealthy man, gives up a tomb that no one had ever been laid in.

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It was a rich man's tomb. He gives it up for Jesus. Jesus dies the most gruesome death with who?

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Jesus is alongside the wicked, but he is the one who is being counted as the guilty one before a holy

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God. That's, by the way, you and me. I want you to consider this for a moment. Think about the imagery here.

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We're almost done. So, we really are. I really need you to think about this because it's powerful.

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To me, this is one of the most jarring, awe -inspiring things about this moment. There are so many details here in terms of vivid symbolism and imagery that are happening from the veil, to the darkness, to the earth shaking.

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All of that is God placing into the story symbol coming alive.

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Watch what's happening, everybody. But this, this is jarring.

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Go to Isaiah 53. Again, Isaiah is clearly

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Matthew's favorite because he has so much of Isaiah in his mind and quotations throughout the gospel.

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But I'm gonna remind you of something. Isaiah 53 was written down about 700 years before Jesus came.

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I'm not gonna read the whole thing. If you haven't read it, you need to read it. If you haven't committed this section of Scripture basically to memory, you need to do that because this is one of the most powerful indications of the divine nature of Scripture imaginable.

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This entire chapter, so much of Isaiah, but this entire chapter is Jesus through and through and it is recorded long before he comes.

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It talks about the fact that he'd be pierced through for our transgressions, he'd be crushed for our iniquities, that they were gonna think that he was dying for his own sins because he was actually guilty, but he was actually dying for their sins, that God was laying on him the iniquity of us all, that he'd justify the many bearing their iniquities.

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You can't talk that way about me. I can't die for your sins.

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I'm not righteous. Moses can't die for your sins because he's not righteous. Neither can

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David, the man after God's own heart. Sure, also an adulterer, also guilty of all kinds of other sins.

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Peter, how about Peter? Can Peter die for us? Nope, nope.

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Jesus at one point calls him Satan, right? So you can't talk about another human being the way that Isaiah talks about this righteous servant, that he's actually has no deceit in his mouth, but look what it says in verse nine.

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No, let's start in eight. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away and asked 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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Look at the connection, look at the connection. Cut off out of the land of living, the word there in the

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Hebrew for cut off signifies dying a violent death. It's the same word used for animal sacrifices in the

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Old Testament. Cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

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So you've got a violent death because of sin. Because of whose sin? The sin of God's people.

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But here's what it says. And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.

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Although he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. Matthew knows this.

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Matthew knows Isaiah. The Jews know Isaiah. And here you have, think about it,

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Jesus' purpose is to die for your sins. If you're in Christ, he was being counted as guilty in your place.

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Watch this. There is a great exchange taking place with Jesus and God's people.

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This is everything. He's the righteous one, you're the sinful one.

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He's the blameless one, you're the blameful one. And Jesus is giving us a great exchange where he is being counted as the guilty one, stricken for the transgression of God's people, and you are given his righteousness, forgiveness, and justification.

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But watch this. The Father is counting him as the guilty one.

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He's counting him as though he were you. So from the

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Father's perspective, the purpose of Christ is to be counted as guilty in your place.

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He's dying among the rebels with the wicked. But on that glorious day, on that dreadful day,

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Jesus is being crucified in the public square next to actual wicked men.

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In the heavenly places, the Father is counting Jesus as the rebel, as the wicked, even though he's not.

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But in the earthly scene, in the public square, God has ordained the symbolism that is shouting about Isaiah.

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He is with the wicked in his death. But what does the text say?

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It says, with a rich man in his death. So if you know

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Isaiah, the scene says, stricken for the transgression of God's people, with the wicked and with the rich.

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And if you would have watched that scene from cross to grave, you would have seen with the wicked, oh, and in a rich man's tomb, with the wicked and the rich in his death.

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It's all there, shouting to them the whole time. But I think there's something so much deeper than just that vivid display of symbolism fulfilled and the wicked in his death and the rich, and that is this.

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Jesus' death gave him a glorious inheritance.

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Therefore, he was buried in the tomb of the rich. It looked like poverty, it looked like nakedness, it looked like destruction, but Jesus was purchasing a people.

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Jesus was accomplishing redemption. And so his death actually gave him this infinite inheritance, this limitless inheritance.

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So though it looked depraved and broken and with poverty, Jesus was buried in the tomb of a rich man because when he accomplished that redemption, he was given this inheritance.

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What's that inheritance? You, me, the world.

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And so it makes sense that though he's crucified with the wicked among criminals, that he'd be buried in a rich man's tomb because he has an inheritance that none of us can even begin to imagine.

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It is an amazing thing to consider these glorious truths from Scripture.

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But can I end you, end the sermon with this. What took place here in the passion of the

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Messiah has to be understood by us in the context that God intended it.

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You can clearly see that God has invested in the world understanding what all this means. With the lights going out, the veil being torn, the earth shaking, dead people coming to life and walking around the city, you can clearly see

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God intends for people to understand something is happening here with Jesus. And God does intend for his people to understand what took place with the passion of Christ.

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What took place? And I think that all of us have to revel in, celebrate, delight in the fact that God's already told us all throughout

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Scripture. And in Isaiah 53, you see the detail that God intends for us to understand.

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This is what I'm doing in my son. Here's the meaning of the Messiah. He will justify the many as he bears their iniquities.

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We're done now with the passion of the Christ. We're done now with the death of Jesus.

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Next week, death is broken, victory is accomplished.

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That's what we're gonna talk about next week. The victory of the Messiah, the resurrection of the

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Son of God. But here's what's important for me as your brother and as a pastor, is that we don't depart from the death of the

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Messiah without understanding the glories of this moment. He will justify the many as he bears their iniquities.

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You'll be declared righteous because he took your sin. God laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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Now, if you know your own minds and if you know your own hearts and if you know your own sin and failure, that should be the greatest story you've ever heard, that God gave to Jesus what you and I deserve.

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You see, that's the meaning of the death of the Messiah. That's a summary of all of his suffering, all of the brutality, all of the mockery, all of the shame, all of the accusations, all of the gasping for breath, all of the cut open back, all of the bleeding, all of this is for you.

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And you could see a terrifying scene like this and just miss, miss the love of God, the wrath of God, the justice of God, the holiness of God.

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You can miss it all because you just see it as, okay, it happened, the earth shook, veil split, earth goes dark,

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Jesus dies, so what? For the child of God, this is everything.

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And brothers and sisters, if this doesn't cause your soul to sing, I don't know what will.

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And here's what I'm gonna challenge you with. If you can read this glorious story about Jesus and what he accomplishes for his people, if you can read that story and not be moved by it to worship and to rejoice in God, I honestly think you should examine yourself to see whether you're in the faith because only people who understand their own sin and their own depravity will glory in a moment like this because when you read about the crucifixion of Jesus and all that God fulfilled here, it was for you if you know him, if you trust him.

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You and I belong on this cross. The brutality and the stripes that Jesus received are things that were due ultimately to you and to me.

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That's what makes this so powerful and meaningful. And if I could just emphasize one last thing, there is a tendency with believers who know

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God and are filled with God's spirit and love God's holiness and are very aware of their own sin.

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There's a tendency to rejoice at the beginning of your salvation experience with Jesus. And as you go farther along and you get more and more sanctified, you hate your sin more and more and more, is that you feel like God is constantly angry with you.

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Why? Because you're constantly aware of your own sin and you hate it. You despise your own sin and you feel like God is constantly angry with you.

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He's constantly ticked at you. Why? Because now you're really aware of your sin because he lives in you. And you feel like God is so far away because you're constantly failing.

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There's hope in that. God's causing you to hate your sin. He loves you as your father.

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You only hate your sin or are so aware of it because he loves you and calls you his own.

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But there's a tendency in the mind of the believer to so overemphasize in their own experience, their own failures, that they're neglecting the glory of the love of God and the cross.

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How much does God love me? A cross full. How much is he invested in my soul for eternity?

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He gives up his son for you. That is the glory of this moment.

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Don't tell me that you have a God who is far off. Don't tell me that your father is absentee.

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This is the God that we worship and he is a holy man. He is a holy God and a God of justice, but he is a

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God of everlasting, eternal, unending, unchanging love.

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And it is displayed most supremely and it can't get better than this. The giving of Christ for his people.

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Why? Because he did not deserve it and he did not have to do any of it.

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Why? I know my sheep and they know me.

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I lay down my life for them. I give them eternal life and nothing can snatch them from my hands.

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This whole moment of pain and endurance, you better know if you're trusting in Christ, his name was on, your name was on his heart.

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It was on his mind. How did Jesus endure all the brutality? How did he endure all that pain? Of course, it's out of faithfulness to his father and what his father commanded him, but you also know from the word of God that this was intensely personal.

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And so how does Jesus endure all of that? For the joy set before him and you and I are included in that joy.

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You're a part of that joy set before him that he's purchasing names and people.

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It's not this nebulous, blank -faced group. It's Jeff, it's

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Dennis, it's Candy, it's Daniel. Yes, even

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Daniel, it's... I love you so much.

01:00:00

I've been able to add Daniel like 10 times in the last three weeks of sermons. It's because I respect you so much.

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I love you so much. But you have to think about that. In your moments of sanctification, never lose sight of the fact that it is the love of God that purchased you.

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And if you wanna know the bounds, the limits of God's love, look at the cross.

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It's limitless. It is high. It is something you and I cannot ultimately comprehend.

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But we need as believers, I think, in a moment like this where you've come out of now the passion of the Messiah, we've read through it together, we've studied it.

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You need to emphasize two things as you look at the cross. The justice of God and the love of God.

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And in Christian experience, people fall off a cliff both ways. They either overemphasize

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God's justice, neglecting His love, or they neglect

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His justice and His law to emphasize His love. If you wanna have a comprehensive perspective of how

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God is, you have to see at the cross both taking place.

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And I think the way to increase your joy and my joy, talking to myself here too, the way to increase your joy and my joy in our walk with Jesus is to never get far from that cross.

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And what it means about the love and dedication of God towards His people. Your name was written on His mind and heart.

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He was going there to die for people whose names are written in the book of life. It is personal.

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Let us never forget that, let's pray. Father, thank you for the gift of your

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Son. Lord Jesus, thank you for what you accomplished for me, for your people, what we don't deserve.

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Lord, I pray for the people in this room and those who are within the sound of my voice around the world who are watching this.

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As we've talked about the Messiah, we've talked about God incarnate, as we've talked about righteousness and blameless, as we've talked about the death, of the

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Messiah and the resurrection of the Messiah. I pray for those who do not know you, that they'd be convicted of their sin even now and their need for the

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Savior, that they bow the knee to Christ as Lord. I pray that you would grant repentance and faith to all who've heard this.

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And thank you, God, for weaving together the most beautiful story imaginable.

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And thank you, Lord Jesus, for enduring the horror of the cross for us.

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It's in your name we pray, amen. The Lord Jesus, the night of his betrayal, gave us this.