Shame and Pain of Calvary — E.A. Johnston

The Missing Doctrine of the Cross

I believe we do folks an injustice with the gospel of our day. I believe we mislead many a poor sinner into a false hope by enabling him to stand upon a false bottom. I believe we do many folks harm by telling them they are now Christians when they are still in their sins.

Our idea of the gospel is to merely quote John 3 .16 and say that Jesus died for you friend won't you accept him so you can go to heaven. We offer folks a cheap salvation like we'd offer them a stick of chewing gum and some take our little Jesus and chew on him for a while until the flavor goes out of their religion and then they die and wake up in hell and its torments.

I believe one of the missing elements of the gospel in our day friends is the doctrine of the cross and I believe too many pastors have gotten out their mop buckets and cleaned up all the blood and gore around Calvary to make it so pristine that you can sit and have your lunch there.

But there was nothing pretty about the cross on which the Savior died and I'm going to preach up the cross of Jesus Christ today and tell you what a scandal and what an offense it really was. The title of my message friends is the shame and pain of Calvary and my text can be found in the book of Hebrews in chapter 12 and verse 2.

Let me read that to us at this time. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Christ's Exaltation Through the Bloody Cross

Now friends there are several aspects to this verse I want to bring before us today. Notice that our text states that Jesus is set down at the right hand of the throne of God and let me add he earned that right by way of a bloody cross.

I think if you take the time and go examine the sermons of men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield and evangelists like D .L. Moody and Mordecai Hamm you will find that the cross of Christ and the Christ of the cross was their central theme.

That's why God honored their preaching so because they preached up the doctrine of the cross so poor sinners could be drawn to a bloody savior for sin. But we today preach a bloodless gospel by failing to preach the doctrine of the cross.

The Shame and Offense of Calvary

Well today I'm going to preach up the cross on which the Lamb of God was slain and that bloody cross was a spectacle friend. It was an offense. The Apostle Paul states in Galatians 5 .11 and die brethren if I yet preach circumcision why do I yet suffer persecution then is the offense of the cross ceased.

That cross of Calvary was an offense to the Jews of Paul's day and it's still an offense to all who come in contact with it today. It was a bloody scandal and here's where I want to explore our first aspect of our text from Hebrews 12 .2.

Word declares that Jesus endured the cross despising the shame. I want each of us here friends to see this aspect of the cross and all its colors and that is the shame of Calvary. Christ in his humiliation.

Christ in his public scandal back in the time of Christ in Jewish and Roman society the most hated form of execution was to be crucified. A man could be hanged as a criminal. He could have his head cut off like the Apostle Paul but to be nailed up on a wooden cross was the ultimate form of cruelty because it was torture on many levels.

It was a long drawn out death unlike hanging or beheading which were quicker. Crucifixion was a scandal because of the shame associated with its punishment and sentence. Only the worst male factors in society were sentenced to the death of crucifixion.

To be seen carrying a cross was a terrible sight in itself because it meant that person was sentenced to die the most barbarian of all executions. It was a lingering shameful death whereby the criminal hung naked on that cross raw to see.

I know there are paintings which depict Jesus on the cross and he is modestly covered by cloth but in reality friends there was no modesty offered to condemn criminal who was to be crucified. They stripped him naked and then nailed him to a tree.

There was a public shame to that cross on Calvary. There the Son of God hung on that ignoble cross as nothing more than a spectacle. Our verse from Hebrews speaks of the shame of the cross. Let us peer into it more specifically as we turn to the gospel record.

Jesus' Mockery and False Accusations

Let us look at some of the events leading up to the crucifixion of Christ as they pertain to the shame associated with Calvary. We will pass by the agony in the garden to his betrayal and arrest to the actual humiliation that Christ endured for poor sinners.

In Luke's gospel in chapter 22 we read the following, and the man that held Jesus mocked him and smote him and when they had blindfolded him they struck him on the face and asked him saying, prophesy, who is it that smote thee?

And many other things blasphemously spake they against him. Here we see Jesus as an object of ridicule, as a clown king who endures mocking and slapping and taunting. Then the Jewish leaders falsely represent Christ to the Roman governor by claiming he perverted the nation, forbidding to give tribute to Caesar and making himself a rival to the emperor by saying he was a king.

So Christ has to endure these false accusations. He has to endure his arrest whereby he no longer has any rights over himself. He has to endure the humiliation of the mocking, the physical abuse whereby his persecutors made sport of him.

The Soldiers' Public Humiliation of Christ

Let us now read, friends, from Mark's gospel record, and the soldiers led him away into the hall called Praetorium and they called together the whole band. Let me pause there, friends. A band of Roman soldiers was often 100 men, a considerable number, and they clothed him with purple and plaited a crown of thorns and put it about his head and began to salute him, hail, king of the Jews, and they smote him on the head with a reed and did spit upon him and bowing their knees, worshipped him, and when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him and put his own clothes on him and led him out to crucify him.

I will stop there. Here is Jesus in his public shame, an object of ridicule, being spit upon. The text from Matthew's gospel says they spit in his face. The shame of being spit upon, especially spit in the face.

I was watching a recent video of an evangelist who was preaching in Jerusalem and his Jewish hearers spit on him time and time again, but Jesus had around 100 men mock him and spit in his face until he reeked with their filthy, foul spittle.

The shame associated with Calvary began before he was nailed to that tree and he endured that shame for you and me. Mark 15, 24 reads, and when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take, and it was the third hour and they crucified him and the superscription of his accusation was written over, the king of the Jews.

Christ Numbered Among Transgressors

That superscription, friends, was intended as a further reproach to Jesus. So we see the Prince of Glory made a public spectacle of infamy as to dishonor him by placing in between two common criminals.

Listen to the following verses. And with him, they crucified two thieves, the one on his right hand and the other on his left, and the scripture was fulfilled with saith, and he was numbered with the transgressors and they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads and saying, ah, thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself and come down from the cross.

Likewise, also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, he saved others, himself he cannot save. Let Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross that we may see and believe.

And they that were crucified with him reviled him. There we see Jesus as a public scandal, despising the shame. I want us now, friends, to examine the pain of Calvary. Crucifixion was an excruciating, painful means of Roman execution and the pains associated with crucifixion were acute and lingering.

The Physical Pain of Crucifixion

It was a slow and painful death. It was a bloody death for the victim who hung on a cross, bled profusely from the wrists and heels. The cross at Calvary was blood red, friends, from the bloody sacrifice to Christ as an offering for sin.

Listen, friends, crucifixion was gruesome. It was gory. It was designed to produce a slow death with maximum pain. The scourging that Jesus endured prior to the cross served to wear him down physically as he lost much blood while his flesh was ripped off his back from the gruesome flagrant whip of cords and balls of lead and broken glass.

These continuing violent blows weakened Jesus to where his back was an unrecognizable mass of torn and bloody flesh. I was recently reading a physician's viewpoint of the crucifixion of Christ in all its medical details of Christ's sufferings and it was so graphically displayed and described that I had to stop reading it for it sickened me just to read about what my blessed Savior endured from a medical standpoint.

Roman crucifixion was the epitome of evil carried out by evil men. The pain of Calvary, friends, would have been too much for you and me to bear. The death of Christ was also a cursed death in that in Deuteronomy 21 -23 it was branded by the Jewish law a mark of God's displeasure.

Forsakenness, Sin, and Reconciliation at the Cross

But I really believe, friends, the most terrible aspect of Calvary occurred when Jesus had to suffer the turned face of the Father for God could not look on sin as Christ became sin for us. And in that moment Jesus cries out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Matthew Henry comments, the fire that should have fallen upon the sinner fell upon the sacrifice. And don't forget the pain of Calvary, friends, in that it was the pain of a broken heart when God the Father sent his only beloved son to die on that bloody cross so that sinful man could be reconciled back to him.

Ephesians 2 -16 declares, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. And Colossians 1 -20 agrees, and having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself by him.

The Necessity of Preaching Christ Crucified

Listen, friends, we need to preach the cross. Don't back away from it, brother preacher, preach the cross. The apostle Paul declares, for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

And Paul declares, but we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness. So we have seen today, friends, the cross in all its colors, in all its blood and gore, in all its scandal and offense.

Resurrection Glory and Faithful Devotion

We've seen both the shame and pain of Calvary, but let me not finish this sermon without commenting on the glory of the resurrection. Listen to me, friends, Buddha lived, died, and was buried. Confucius lived, died, and was buried.

Muhammad lived, died, and was buried. Jesus lived, died, and was buried. But he rose again. We serve a risen Lord. Christianity was never built on a coffin lid. How can we take our salvation so carelessly by sinning and trampling the blood of Christ?

Let us hate sin as God hates it. Let us lay down our lives, lay them down for Christ in service to him as he laid his life down for us. He held nothing back as he endured the cross, despising the shame.

But look at the last part of our text from Hebrews 12 .3, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hallelujah. Oh, what a Savior. Oh, let us pray.