Behold the Man

Good evening, everyone. It's a pleasure to be back with you again this evening, and if you weren't here this morning I bring greetings from Bethany Baptist Church in Stockton. And I'm thankful for our partnership in the gospel and for your invitation to have me in your pulpit.

John 19:1-16 and the Reading of the Passage

I invite you tonight, so we again have a second meditation in the gospel of John if you would turn to chapter 19. John 19. And we will be considering verses 1 through 16 and when you arrive there Let us stand together for the reading of God's Word.

John 19 1 through 16. So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him and The soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on his head and they put on him a purple robe. Then they said hail king of the Jews and they struck him with their hands.

Pilate then went out again and said to them Behold I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no fault in him. Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe and Pilate said to them Behold the man.

Therefore when the chief priests and officers saw him they cried out saying crucify him crucify him. Pilate said to them you take him and crucify him for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him we have a law and According to our law he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God.

Therefore when Pilate heard that that saying he was the more afraid and Went again into the praetorium and said to Jesus Where are you from? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then Pilate said to him. Are you not speaking to me?

Do you not know that I have power to crucify you and power to release you? Jesus answered you could have no power at all against me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered me to you has the greater sin.

From then on Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out saying if you let this man go you are not Caesar's friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar. When Pilate therefore heard that saying He brought Jesus out and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement but in Hebrew Gabbatha now it was the preparation day of the Passover and about the sixth hour and he said to the Jews Behold your king But they cried out away with him away with him crucify him.

Pilate said to them shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered we have no king but Caesar. Then he delivered him to them to be crucified. Then they took Jesus and led him away.

Amen.

You may be seated. Let's unite our hearts and prayer and ask the Lord's blessing on our time. Father we pray that this evening in this section of John's Gospel. That you would grant that our hearts by your spirit would see the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord.

That we would see here.

Love.

Divine love given for us. Father we pray that we would see the humility of our Lord. That he who was in the form of God and thought it not robbery to be equal with God Humbled himself taking to himself the form of a servant and Becoming obedient.

He was obedient even to the point of the death of the cross. Father we pray warm our hearts by your spirit through the truth that he has penned for us. Lord Christ is all our hope. He is the grounds of all our hope.

It is in him his person and work. That we find our peace and comfort in life and in the life to come we pray that you would comfort your people draw near to your people and we pray for those who are strangers to the grace of God in Jesus Christ that father you would draw them to your son.

We pray that you would warm their hearts by this picture of God who was made man for us suffering for our sakes and in our place that we might be redeemed from the curse of the law and the Curse of sin and death and hell and that we might live forever where he is to see his glory.

Father we ask for your blessing. We ask for the ministry of your spirit. Amongst us we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Well, this is somewhat of a lengthier passage than I usually take and so what I want to do this evening is I want to work through it in our usual exposition doctrine application format, but in our exposition I want to simply Summarize this passage in four main sections.

The Compromise of Pilate and the Mocking of Christ

Okay. So let's begin in verses 1 through 5. We see the compromise. And I know we're for you. You're hopping into the gospel of John. I've been in the gospel of John with my people. Jesus is on trial before Pilate.

The Jews are thirsting for his death. They're crying for his crucifixion. Pilate a pragmatic man and yet a man with a conscience is trying with all his might to release the Lord and So here even still Pilate has sympathy believing him to be an innocent man.

I find no fault in him. And so he pragmatically tries to satisfy their bloodthirst with a lesser punishment. He scourges the Lord and Some believe that Pilate himself is the one who carries out this scourging in order to conduct it with less cruelty.

But whether that's true or not what we do know is that his soldiers here indulge all the more freely in their cruelty. They twist a crown of thorns and Press it into the Lord's head. They put upon him a purple robe.

The synoptics tell us that they put in his hand a weak reed and they strike him and they say prophesy who struck you. They are doing all they can to mock his claim of kingship. Creatures are foolishly mocking their Creator.

But he stands silent in order to reconcile the world to himself and Pilate brings him out to the crowd hoping this will satisfy them as he's wearing the robe. He's wearing the crown of thorns and he says to them behold the man.

As.

If to say to them is this the man you feel threatened by is This the man you are worried whose kingship might take over the world and take your place. Look at him behold him. He has been reduced to shame and then we see in verses six and seven the further demand.

This does not satisfy them. They still thirst for nothing less than his death and They try to argue that it is justice that drives them not malice not Jealousy not envy. They say we have a law and According to that law he ought to die.

They say he is a false prophet he is a blasphemer because he made himself the Son of God. Now here they do understand the law correctly, but they grossly Condemn Christ for his claims. They understood that he did make himself the Son of God in a peculiar sense.

Not just in the sense that Israel was called God's firstborn. He had made himself equal with God. John 5 John chapter 8 before Abraham was I am. Any other man taking those claims to himself? It would have been blasphemy.

But they fail at this point to understand their own Old Testament. The titles that are given to Messiah the offices that are given to Messiah. He is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, but they refuse to see and they instead shall crucify him.

Pilate's Fear, Christ's Silence, and the Authority from Above

Thirdly in verses 8 through 11. We have pilots hesitation. Pilot becomes even more afraid. His wife has already been warned in a dream about this man to have nothing to do with him. And when he hears this saying he becomes afraid.

There's something different about this man. And he brings him in and he asks him. Where are you from? And when he you know this when he asked him that he's not asking about his earthly. Where his home country is he's asking him.

Are you a god? His mind goes to religious thoughts.

Calvin.

Says on this verse he says pilot is or sorry. A pilot struck with the fear of God was in perplexity and doubt as to what he ought to do. And Pilot is proof that men have a natural sentiment of religion which keeps even the reprobate from rushing headlong into sacrilege.

Pilate has more of a conscience than the Jews here. He at least falters and Yet you think about how many there are today Who mock and make a jest of God? Not realizing that they are just like those who tortured the Lord without pity and Who will one day find themselves falling in?

To his power in judgment, but the Lord gives no response to him. He does not stand here to plead his cause with pilot. He does not wish to escape what the cup that his father has given him to drink. He's already made the good confession before pilot.

Pilot knows it. Pilot has said from his own lips. I find no fault. What he has already said is sufficient and he will not seek any further his own release. And. So pilot frustrated says do you? Do you not answer me.

Do you not know that I have power to crucify you and To release you. This shows that pilots pains of conscience, whatever they were were merely temporary ones. One moment he fears this might be a God in my midst and the next he goes into a fury of pride and he threatens.

Christ.

Calvin says again This must always happen with irreligious men that shaking off the fear of God. They once had they quickly returned to their natural disposition. Pilot is is like Pharaoh here who one minute is sorry for his sins he wants relief from his suffering, but the next raises his fist against the God of heaven and Christ reproves him.

You could have no power at all against me unless it had been given you from above. Nice try pilot. I Am here by the decree of my father and you would have no authority no Throne by which to judge if it had not been given to you from above.

He says therefore the one who delivered me to you has the greatest greatest sin. Now he's not absolving pilot of culpability and guilt there. Both pilot and the Jews have guilt in this even though pilot would try to pretend he's acting righteously.

But it is those who have set up this whole charade and those who are purposefully perverting Uninstitution created by God for the upholding of justice. It is they who bear the greater guilt and Then fourthly we have verses 12 through 16.

The Delivering Up of Jesus and the Coming Judgment

The giving up amazingly pilot receives the rebuke. He doesn't fly off the handle and accuse Christ. Who are you to tell me about what I can do with my power? Something pierces his conscience again and He still seeks to release him.

But the Jews finally prevail over him with their threats. This is a display of shocking madness. Even if the Lord was a fraud and Not who he claimed to be they ought not to have acknowledged. No other King but Caesar.

They hated Caesar. The only reason they appeal to Caesar is because it is a Pragmatic way of threatening and twisting. Pilots arm into giving them what they want. And so so much do they hate the Lord? that they throw off even their professed love of God in order to secure the Lord's death.

And Alas pilot gives them what they want. He folds finally He delivers them over to them to be crucified.

Now.

Brothers and sisters, let's turn to consider and meditate on The beauty of the doctrine of this passage. It's one thing to understand the events themselves. What was going on in pilots mind and heart back and forth between the Jews and him?

But there's something far more central that we are to grasp from this. And the first thing that I want us to see here is That we are taught the great condescension of our God in the gospel. Condescension our God coming down our God.

Christ God in the flesh true God of true God true man of true man. Came down not only from heaven to earth. But from heaven to the stable at the very beginning of his life to the loneliness. Not having a place to lay his head.

To the rejection to the suffering. To the cross to the grave all for us and our salvation. Amazing love. How can it be that thou my God should die for me? That the father loved us sinners enough to send his only begotten Son to do this for us.

This is the will of him who sent the Son and the love of the Son who loved us such that he came. Willingly to go as a sheep to the slaughter. It's a stumbling block for those who are perishing. But it is glory to those who are being saved in arrogance.

Pilate says and He says it with the very breath. He's borrowing from Christ.

Behold the man.

Behold the man here whom I have made to be bloodied and beaten as. Though that's proof and assurance that this is no king. This is no God. This is shame. This is weakness. No one will believe in him. No one will follow him.

He's despised and rejected. We esteemed him stricken and smitten by God and afflicted abused and scourged and derided by men. Sinners reject him according to worldly wisdom because of the shame. God wouldn't do that.

But in humble childlike faith on the other side of that same coin The Christian says yes. Behold the man. See here his glory. See here at the cross and the man hanging on and suspended between heaven and earth.

See here the great condescension of our God for sinners. First Corinthians 2 8. None of the rulers of this age Understood this for if they had they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Precisely here.

In what the world considers the apex of his shame we see the apex of the glory of the Son of God and the love of God. That God so full of mercy and grace to sinners. Willed that he not exercise his power which he could have to escape.

In order that he might reconcile his people to himself. Every single thing these sinful men are doing to the Lord to. That they do in malice and mockery towards him is an ironic tribute to who the Lord truly is and what he truly deserves.

This is the one Isaiah saw in all his glory. John says. The one who is holy holy holy and the whole earth is full of his glory.

And even that the holy.

Cherubim. Cover their eyes with their wings so that they might not look upon the holiness of Christ. This is the one that commands the wind and the seas and they obey him The one who turns the heart of key earthly Kings like a river in his hand This is the one who took down Pharaoh and his armies Who flooded the earth who dispersed the nation's who created all things who was before all things.

Who is before.

Creation before Abraham was I.

Am.

The divine name and. Yet we behold the man dying in weakness. Pierce for our transgressions. Hung on a cross for me laid in a tomb that should have been my tomb. This is the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is weakness, but it is willing weakness. Nothing is happening except what he decreed to happen and He decreed that he would humble himself.

That.

Our God.

Would be contracted to a span incomprehensibly made man. So that he who was from eternity impassable unable to suffer Takes on our nature so that he can suffer for me. He who rules the nations with a rod of iron Allows himself to be overruled by a mob.

He who deserves to be crowned with diadems is crowned with thorns.

He whose.

Glory of his essence is as the sun shining in his brightness is reduced to being clothed with mere earthly purple. He who gave the law is condemned by the law. He who spoke the world into existence keeps silent as eternal.

God who cannot die dies in his humanity for us Christian. Behold our God and behold the man my friend if you're here and you're an unbeliever I Pray that the Lord even now by his spirit is warming your heart to see the center of the gospel of Christ that what you might up until this moment have considered the Preeminent spectacle of shame is actually the glory of God in his love and mercy giving himself for sinners.

We sing that him blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain. But God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain. Don't interpret the cross of Christ Through worldly sinful lenses. Believe the Word of God believe God's interpretation that in Christ.

He was reconciling the world to himself. See glory see Condescension. God coming down to save worthless sinners like us. Nothing moved him to it. He did not see that the world was turning in his way was becoming righteous.

We had nothing to offer him. We had no money. This was divine initiative. God said I will do for them what they cannot do for themselves and what they wouldn't even want to do for themselves and I will send my son in the likeness of human flesh.

So that in him the righteous requirement of the law will be fulfilled in them. By me putting my son on the cross and fulfilling the requirement of sin and punishment. Secondly more briefly. And I wish I had time to say more.

This scene is also a precursor of the day that these roles will be reversed. Philippians chapter 2. Therefore after he humbled himself to the point of death therefore God has highly exalted him and Bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus Every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

The man who died in weakness rose three days later to reign in glory and power. Never to die again he made atonement once for all and Now he has ascended to his throne and received his kingdom where he has sat down because his work is finished.

And he is gathering in his elect from every tribe and tongue and nation and the day is Approaching when he will return a second time as the king of glory and the judge of all mankind.

And.

He will take his judgment seat and This time sinners will be put on trial. Great and small will appear before him. The sea will give up the dead which is in her. Earth will give up her his dead and we shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.

Pilate will be there. The Jews will be there Gentiles you and I we must appear before his judgment seat.

And.

God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus and Unlike Pilate he will not judge by pragmatism by convenience but with perfect Justice and equity. That brings us to our application. How should we respond to the Word of God.

Application: Fleeing Wrath, Trusting Christ, and Living for His Glory

God is speaking to us from heaven through his Word? You may be here as an unbeliever and you think that's a fairy tale and a fable. I am here to tell you as a minister of the gospel. What you think about it does not change what it is.

What you say about it does not change it. Jesus Christ rose from the dead proving that he is none other than the Son of God. Everything he said will come to pass. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

And He says to you unbeliever flee from the wrath to come. Flee from the wrath to come. You don't know when your days will come to an end. It could be tonight like the fool who built bigger barns to store his stuff and said now I will eat and drink and be merry for all the Rest of my days and the Lord appears to him that night and says you fool.

This night your soul is required of you. Your never-dying soul is not something to play games with God with. There are things we can lose that are of very little significance. Your soul is not one of them and Christ himself.

The judge of all mankind right now sits in heaven as the Savior. Offered to all mankind indiscriminately. Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Let none of your sins be an impediment to you coming to me bring them.

My grace is more than all your sins. There is more holiness in me than there is sin in you and so come to me before it's too late. Sinner, I plead with you come to Jesus Christ fear the Lord now. Through his mercy and saving grace so that you don't have to fear and tremble before the Lord on that day.

His mercy is great, but time is running out.

Believer.

I've got two things in closing Believer and this is to all of us kids you guys listen in adults old people all of us. Let your only hope in life and in death be Jesus Christ. Who among us? Has never had those shudderings when you think about the moment of your death?

Death is a big moment. Death is when all that we have heard on earth becomes and believed by faith becomes sight. And We know that hell will be more terrifying than we understood on earth and Heaven will be more glorious and the judgment seat of Christ will be more majestic than any words the greatest preacher could summon.

And there can be angst and Trepidation because it's serious. Remember Jesus Christ. When you cross the Jordan we just saying that him. The death of death and hell's destruction. Remember. I am a great Sinner, but Christ is a great Savior.

It does not matter. What else you forget in life. It doesn't matter what else you didn't have time to learn. Never move from the rock. I don't care how Brilliant you become in theology. Never ever move from the rock.

I am safe simply and solely because I am resting in Jesus Christ and his blood and righteousness for me. The reason I will be acquitted on that day and I will go to his right hand as a sheep is because I trust him.

He was condemned in my place. That is my plea. That's it. That's that's our only plea right Luther said. When I look at myself, I don't see how I can be saved. But when I look at Jesus Christ, I don't see how I can be lost.

Children. The gospel is so simple and Christ is so tender. The thief on the cross. The thief on the cross had almost no theology.

He.

Didn't go to heaven because he was able to pass the test of explaining the doctrine of the Trinity. He simply knew that I see the man hanging on the middle cross and He's a king and he has a kingdom. And when I look at him I see that there is kindness and mercy on his face towards a sinner like me.

And All he knew was I need to ask this man. Can I come with you to your kingdom? And the Lord said to him without any deep testing or theology lesson Today you will be with me in paradise. He had no almost no good works.

Not to say good works don't matter. But he had very little time to offer the Lord a life of obedience and thankfulness to what God had done for him. The gospel is not I'm going to get to heaven and tell the Lord.

Here's why I was a good decent person and better than this person.

That is.

You should repudiate that gospel. That is law the gospel is. I'm a sinner and I have absolutely nothing to offer my God except for an empty hand and. With that hand I will reach out by faith and I will cling to the cross of Jesus Christ that the that God gave for me.

Never will I trust in something I have given to him. Plant your feet and stay there. That Jesus Christ is your hope in life and death and. The second thing Christian we unlike the thief on the cross assuming God will give us some amount of days.

We have opportunity to now live our life for the one who was condemned for me. The one who loved me. Paul Galatians 2 20. The life I now live. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

He doesn't say the life. I now live. I live by faith in the Son of God who threatens me. When I disobeyed who loved me and gave himself for me. Why what is one of the main reasons I want to live for Jesus Christ.

It's not the bondage of fear it's because he purchased my heart with love and my Life with his buried life his blood. My friend died for me. He literally my friend gave his life to unspeakable torment.

So that I could be spared and live. And so what should my response be to such a friend? Do we turn around having a friend like that? We turn around and go about talking badly about him. Dragging his name through the dirt.

Do we now I'm gonna just live my life in complete opposition to everything. My friend is about. No that love compels us constrains us. I Want to do everything I do to honor that friend. I Want that friend to be glorified in my life?

I want others to see me and I love him so much that when they see me I want them to see him and the main thing I want to fear is I want to fear. Disappointing the one who has loved me so much. I Mentioned the look of Christ to Peter this morning that piercing Look of love.

Forgiving patient love towards his disciple Christian before you sin. Think about that look of love think about what it stood for. Your sins are what drove our Lord and Savior to the cross and he still bore it to free you from it he knew all things from.

Before time began he knew your past sins before you were Christian. You knew your sins as a Christian and he still went to the cross for you. That should be a deterrent for sin. I have learned some of my deepest lessons in life.

From friends who have forgiven me after I have sinned against them. Good friends that I wronged and for them to freely according to the grace of God in Christ to say brother You wronged me, but I forgive you and To give me another chance that taught me lessons that I will never ever ever forget.

I never again want to do wrong to that friend. Christ died for the ungodly. That makes me want to be a better man. Not just for the sake of being a better man, but because I I want to glorify him. I want my whole life to be an overture which sings the praise of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ be praised all. Glory to him who purchased me with his blood. Brothers and sisters what a great Savior we have. What a perfect Savior the Father has given us every need we have from the fall of Adam.

God has provided in Jesus Christ his son perfect in every single way my prophet my priest my king. My help in my time of need. The one who prays for me the one who intercedes and makes Intercession so that my faith though it might temporarily fail it will not utterly fail.

Intercession that's efficacious that guarantees his people will turn again from sin and He will bring them all the way to glory to be with him where he is to see his glory. Jesus Christ is worth living and giving our all for Everything I have Everything I am my very life and soul and blood He is worthy of.

Let us pray. Father we pray that we would cherish more the gift of your son. Father it's amazing to us. There are There are scenes from your word there are times when your spirit uniquely ministers to us and we see something of the Unspeakable glory of Christ and yet we believe that in heaven when we are translated into our new new redeemed glorified bodies.

We will realize we but tasted on earth and that there are streams of glory awaiting us in heaven. Father we pray that we would decrease and Christ would increase that in our minds and our hearts and our thinking our souls.

That Jesus Christ would be all in all. Father we pray we think of Christ's words that the Spirit's role would be to take what is Christ and to give it to us. We pray for more of the influence of your spirit who shows us the profound mysteries and glories of our Lord.

Cause us father to see more and more that every need we have is found in his person and work. That there is not a single need that has gone unmet. Father we pray for our children. We pray at an early age save them from a lifetime of sin.

Cause them to follow the Lord to to love the Lord their God with all their heart mind strength and soul. Cause them to go further for your kingdom than we we will go Father we pray for your name's sake not to us O Lord.

But unto your name be glory do this for your sake. Use us as instruments. By your help cause us to do whatever small part you have called us to let us do it. Well and faithfully because no work done in the name of our Lord Jesus is done in vain.

Bless us we pray we ask in Jesus name. Amen.