Jesus Predicts His Death

Matthew 20:17-19

Mark 10:32-34 & Luke 18:31-34

Matthew 20:17-19, Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, 18 “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, 19 and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise again.”

This is the third and last prediction of our Lord regarding His death and resurrection. The first time. Matthe 16:21, From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.

The second time.

Matthew 17:22-23, Now while they were staying in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, 23 and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up.” And they were exceedingly sorrowful.

The second adds detail to the first. The third adds detail to the second. This is a fuller prediction than any of the others. The most important Christian truth, and the center of the biblical revelation is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Thie third time prediction takes us beyond the earlier two, which simply talked about Him dying and rising. This time it stresses the nature of His suffering and the details of it. He doesn’t just say He will die and rise.

He doesn’t just say He will be crucified and rise. But rather He explains detail by detail that He will be betrayed, He will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn Him to death. Then they will hand Him over to the pagans where He will be mocked, scourged, and finally crucified. Following that, He will rise from the dead.

The whole detail is given.

Some rejecters of the truth have tried to put Jesus Christ into a totally human category. Some of them have been more generous to say that Jesus was a loving, gentle, peaceful kind of individual who somehow got caught in a very hostile world and accidentally wound up getting crucified.

Others have been less than generous to Him and said He was a self-styled, would-be conqueror who tried to pull off a coup of sorts, only somewhere took a wrong turn, and He wound up being a victim of His own revolution. However, all of them are wrong.

The sufferings of Jesus Christ were no accident. The sufferings of Jesus Christ were no miscalculation. They were no surprise to Him. They were no shock at all. But rather Jesus gives here detail by detail precisely and exactly what is going to happen to Him.

The first recorded words of Jesus spoke.

Luke 2:49, And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

The last words before His death.

John 19:30, So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. Jesus knew what and when. He had finished it. He finished it in His death. He knew why He was on the earth. He knew every detail of it. Also, He knew every single detail of His sufferings indicates to us that He must have suffered through them a thousand times before because of His Omniscience. Jesus primarily wanted His disciples should know this because they were so much focused on the glory of the kingdom not His suffering.

They seemed to understand the blessings and the glory of the Messiah not the suffering One. Just like today many Christians are so much focused on the blessings rather than taking up the cross and following Him. Even today the Jews were not able to accept the suffering, Messiah!

They knew all the prophecies concerning the Messiah coming and establishing the Kingdom.

• They were looking at Lion of Judah.
• Jesus was shifting their focus to the lamb of God.

Jesus knew this that is the reason He tells them the third time with more details. The plan. V 17-18, Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, 18 “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, “Behold” indicates a certain amount of surprise.

It is an exclamation.

• It may seem startling to you,
• It may seem shocking to you,
• It may seem surprising to you,
• You may not understand it,

But we are going to Jerusalem.

Luke 9:51, Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem,

While Jesus finished His Galilean ministry, crossed the Jordan at a northern point, come to the east of the Jordan known as the Beyond, called Peraea. He had been in Peraea coming south down the backside of the Jordan. Now Jesus crosses the Jordan again, coming toward Jerusalem.

Matthew 20:29, Now as they went out of Jericho, a great multitude followed Him. Jesus comes to Jericho and starts the long ascent to Jerusalem.

It is only a matter of days the Passover, the death, and the resurrection. “Going up to Jerusalem.” They must have been already on the move.

• Jericho is about 1000 feet below sea level,
• Jerusalem is over 5,000 above sea level.

Jericho and Jerusalem are about 15 miles apart. A very steep ascent. This is the reason Bible says they were going up. Jesus and the disciples, plus other congregation since the Perean ministry had congregated a mass of people.

Matthew 20:29, says there was a great multitude that followed Him. Passover time, they were attracted because they would normally be on this journey anyway as well. Jesus was moving toward Jerusalem. On His way, He again feels the need to communicate what’s going on to His disciples. So, He pulls them aside along the road, gets them off somewhere away from the crowd, and speaks to them.

Mark 10:32, Now they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed. And as they followed they were afraid. Then He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them the things that

would happen to Him

“Amazed and afraid.” The reason for this is because they knew the hostility of the Jerusalem aristocracy. They knew that both the chief priests and the scribes were enemies of Christ. They had enough experience to know that.

They had already run into conflict with these people, the Pharisees namely, on several occasions. They couldn’t see any point in going right into Jerusalem.

They also knew that that’s where the Roman seat was. Maybe they felt that if you are going to pull off a revolution, it ought to start up in Galilee, and accumulative grass roots revolution. You don’t just walk a motley group of thirteen people into the city of Jerusalem and take over.

They were somewhat confused. Jesus walked in front of them, and they were in the back. Jesus is like a commander who is leading His troops into battle, and he puts himself in the most dangerous and vulnerable position. Jesus faced steadfast, moving toward His own death on behalf of these disciples, and they were afraid and amazed, cowering in the back, dragging behind Him. Mingling both the anticipation of the hope of the kingdom with the fear of death, and not really knowing what to expect.

The word “amazed,” in Greek is thambeō. This word is used only by Mark three times and then once in the book of Acts 9:6. Paul on the road to Damascus. Based on those four usages and it seems to be the best way to translate that word is “to be confused,” or “to be baffled,” “to be unable to understand the situation.”

So it is that kind of amazement. It isn’t the amazement of seeing something wonderful and awesome, it is the confusion and the chaos of the mind that comes when you can’t make sense of what’s happening. Like what Paul was experiencing when he went blind on the road to Damascus and when the resurrected Christ confronted him.

They were afraid because of their confusion. The word Mark uses phobos from which we get phobia. They are having some real anxiety because of the confusion of wondering why Jesus would be going to Jerusalem when He knows the people there hate Him and want to take His life.

But He is so resolute.

Luke 18:31, Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.

We must go because it is the prophetic plan. So, Jesus going to suffer is no accident. It is no shock. This was foretold by the prophets’ numerous times. This is the culmination of the redemptive plan of God.

We will find numerous passages predicting all the factors of Jesus Christ’s life.

Zechariah 9:9 says that He would enter into Jerusalem. Psalm 2, that He would know the fury and rage of His enemies.

Zechariah 13:7, that He would be deserted by His friends.

Zechariah 11:12, that His betrayal would be for ³⁰ pieces of silver.

Psalm 22:16, that He would be pierced on the cross.

Exodus 12:46 and Psalm 34:20. none of His bones would be broken.

Psalm 22:18 says that His garments will be parted by casting of lots.

Psalm 69:21 says He will be given vinegar to drink.

Psalm 22:1, He will cry out in the pain of distress.

Zechariah 12:10 says they will pierce Him with a sphere.

Psalm 16:10, that He will rise from the dead.

Psalm 110:1 says He will ascend into heaven. All those things are part of the Old Testament prophets. A detailed description of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in minute detail, we can read from Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and Zechariah’s prophecy. So, Jesus going to Jerusalem was on schedule, and on the divine plan.

There are not only very explicit, verbal predictions about Christ, but the whole flow of the Old Testament in its types

and symbols and pictures demands that the Messiah die for the sins of the world. Not only verbal predictions but the whole picture, the graphic of the Old Testament demands that. The death of Jesus Christ is the primary event in history and the primary event in the Bible.

Genesis 3. Guilt, shame, and separation covered by sacrifice. Adam and Eve when they sin instantly they feel cut off from God. The first thing they do is hide themselves. They are estranged from God. There was a separation.

The second thing that occurs is that they immediately become aware that they are naked. God comes and clothes them. To clothe them with the skin of animals, there must be death. Some animals are slain to make clothes for them.

Guilt and shame and separation are covered by sacrifice. Very important truth. First time that truth is introduced. Sacrifice is the only way to deal with guilt and separation from God. We find that not a verbal prediction of Jesus Christ, but a

setting in motion of truth that demands the ultimate Passover Lamb. Genesis 22. God will provide a substitute. Second, a great and profound element of sacrificial truth is taught. God gave Abraham a son by the name of Isaac in whom all his hopes resided.

He was to be the seed out of whose loins would come a generation of people who would number as the sand of the sea and the stars of heaven. An Abrahamic promise was bound up in Isaac. God comes to Abraham and says, “I want you to kill your son,”

you can see the slaying of all his hopes and dreams. All the things that God had promised and planned. Yet Abraham is truly faithful and committed to do what God says. So, he packs a bunch of wood on Isaac’s back, and they start for the hill of sacrifice known as Mount Moriah.

They get up there, and Isaac puts the sticks down, and then Abraham puts Isaac down on top of the altar that has been prepared. Abraham lifts the knife to drive it into the heart of his own beloved son. At that moment, God stops his arm, and he hears

a ram in the thicket. Abraham goes over, takes the ram, and sacrifices the ram. God spares his son.

Hebrews 11:19, concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. If God says, “Kill him,” then God’s going to have to raise him from the dead to fulfill His own word. Abraham believed God was a God of His word, so he was willing to take his son’s life so that God could raise him from the dead.

But God held his hand and provided a ram. That is the second profound truth of redemption taught in the book of Genesis, and that is substitution. God will provide a substitute.

Genesis 22:14, And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, “In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.” Sacrifice only can deal with your sin, shame, and guilt and God will provide a sacrifice. Exodus 20. sacrifice must be unblemished/pure.

The third great principle is redemptive sacrifice. God says, “I am going to send the angel of death through Egypt, and he is going to slay the first born of every house. If you want to be protected, you must sacrifice a lamb that is unblemished, without spot, a pure lamb. Put the blood on the doorposts and the lintel and the angel of death seeing that will pass by you.”

A blood sacrifice will deliver you from judgement. Genesis 3, that sin must be dealt with by sacrifice. Genesis 22, that a sacrifice can be substituted for the guilty person. Exodus 20, the sacrifice must be unblemished, must be pure.

Move from there to the wanderings of Israel, and we get into the wilderness at Sinai. God draws all the people together. Moses goes up the mount. God gives the law. God begins to unfold through Moses all the intricate, complex elements of the sacrificial system, so that sacrifice for those people became a way of living.

Every day, every national feast, every act of worship, every approach to God, every day of every year was based on sacrifice.

So, sacrifice became a way of life. They were giving bloody sacrifices day in, day out, year in and year out. Bring all these pictures together. Genesis 3, that sin must be dealt with by sacrifice. Genesis 22, that a sacrifice can be substituted for the guilty person.

Exodus 20, the sacrifice must be unblemished, must be pure. The centrality of sacrifice in the law, we learn the importance of sacrifice in a worshiping life. There will be no worship of God without sacrifice, none. The first of the five offerings was the burnt offering, and the burnt offering was all offered to God. God needs to be offered the fullness of sacrifice in any act of worship.

God had to provide then a sacrifice to cover sin, who was a substitute, who was unblemished, who could redeem His people, and provide the kind of sacrifice that could open up the way of worship forever. When Jesus died on the cross, the veil of the temple was torn, and the sacrificial system was over. Because He was the final sacrifice that created an openness to God from which we

could worship from then on without ever having to offer another sacrifice. When we study the Old Testament, this was not just verbal prediction. The whole flow of it is that there is the need for a sacrifice. Our Lord says, “We go to Jerusalem.”

The disciples think we are going there for Passover. What they did not know was that they were going there with the Passover Lamb.

• They were looking for lion, but He was thinking lamb.
• They were thinking for the kingdom, He was thinking sacrifice.
• They were thinking glory, and He was thinking suffering and then glory.

On the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17, they thought this was it. Now He is going to Jerusalem. They are confused and afraid. Jesus was on schedule. In the gospel of John in several places, “I will do the will of My Father.”

Even after His resurrection when He met those disciples on the road to Emmaus, He asked them the question.

Luke 24:26-27, Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” 27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Maybe He just took them through the whole flow of Moses, and then the prophets gave them the verbal predictions. Maybe they went to Isaiah 53. Maybe they went to Zechariah, and then in all the Holy Writings. Maybe He took them to the Psalms ²² and showed them.

Luke 24:46, Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day

1 Corinthians 15:3-4, For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,

1 Peter 1:11, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

This is the reason Jews even today missed Jesus as their Messiah because all they can see is the glory, they don’t understand the suffering. They do not know what to do with Psalm 22, They have not got a clue what to do with Isaiah 53, and They have lost in Zechariah also.

Because if you don’t see the suffering, you can’t understand Christ. Jesus was taken to the temple when He was that little child by His mother, and there they met that man of God who was devout, waiting for the conciliation of Israel, the coming of the Messiah by the name of Simeon.

He had asked the Lord that he would not die till he saw Messiah. When Jesus was brought in as child he picked Him up in his arms, and blessed Him, and talked about how He would be for the falling and the rising of many.

Luke 2:34-35, Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against 35 (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” From the very beginning it was that way.

When He arrived, and John the Baptist saw Him.

John 1:29, The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Revelation 5:6, And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Jesus was going to Jerusalem because it was on plan. Prediction of Jesus sufferings. He adds to what the Old Testament prophets say His own prophecies. V 17-19, Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, 18 “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, 19 and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise again.” Jesus is predicting these things to the detail. Only God knows that.

Only God can tell the story before it happens, Only God can make history before it even occurs. This is God in human flesh.

Incredible details

• Betrayal,
• Handing over to chief priests, scribes,
• Condemned to death,
• Handed over to the Pagans where He will be mocked.
• Matthew and Luke add, “He will be spit on.”
• Scourged,
• Crucified, and
• He rise again.”

How did He know all of that? Only one who knows that is God, and that is who He is. Jesus knew how many husbands a strange woman he had never met the one she was living with was not her husband. He knew a conversation before a conversation occurred.

He told His disciples to get the colt, the foal of an ass. He told them the conversation would happen when they asked the owner for the animal before the guy even was asked. He forecast the fall of Jerusalem in Matthew 21.

He calls Himself the Son of Man that was His favorite term. He used it 80 times in the Gospels. It is a term of His humiliation, but it also incorporates His exaltation out of that humility. Betrayal. The verb “betrayed” is not here.

It is simply the verb “to be handed over.” Judas who turned Him over. It was a betrayal. Jesus was turned over the chief priests. There were thousands of priests were there in Jerusalem. The chief priests were the upper ones.

There were the Levites. They were at the bottom of the priestly totem pole. There was the normal course of priests. There was the priest who was the head of the daily course. There was another priest who was ahead of the weekly course.

There was the priest who is the captain of the temple. There was the high priest, who was at the top of the ladder were known as the chief priests. These chief priests were the hereditary aristocracy. They were in the priestly line.

They got their rank by heredity.

They accompanied by the scribes, who got their rank not by heredity, but by knowledge. They attained knowledge by studying the law. They were lawyers, and nobody could interpret anything without them. Very much like today.

If you want to interpret any kind of law, you get into any kind of legal situation, you must have a lawyer. It was that way then. In trying to interpret the Mosaic economy, they had to have “lawyers.” They were the scribes who could come along side and explain the meaning and interpret the law.

 They had the hereditary aristocracy.  They had knowledge of aristocracy. They made this body of people who ultimately condemned Jesus Christ to death.

Why? Because Jesus threatened the security of their system. Jesus sees Himself being betrayed to them, to this executive body of the temple priesthood, being handed over. indeed, that is what happened. Judas betrayed Him.

The priests were rejectors of Christ who set up fake and mockery trial and condemn Him to death. Jesus saw this happening, and that is exactly what happened. This is not a surprise. This is exactly the way it was planned, and He predicts the details.

Obviously, they could not kill Him because the Romans had removed their right to do that. So, they had to give Him over to the Gentiles. After the condemn Him to death in a false trial, He should die for what He has done. Ultimately the charge was that He spoke against Caesar and so forth, because they knew that the Romans wouldn’t like that. They delivered Him over to the Pagans because the Romans had the right of execution, and they alone could take His life.

Pilate could not find anything wrong with Him, but finally succumbed to crucifying Him because of extortion. They said they would tell Caesar and he is not friend of him. He already had two strikes against him in his relations with the Jews. Caesar would have taken him out of there, and maybe taken his life by one other mistake and he succumbed.

What happened when they took Him down into Fort Antonia? They mocked Him. They put a reed in His hand, crammed a crown of thorns on His head, spit all over Him, and they jeered at Him. All that are mockery as He describes.

Then they scourged Him. They lacerated His back with leather thongs in which there were bits of bone and metal in the end. They did all of this because they were laughing to scorn at Him. Ultimately, they crucified Him. All the details are there.

Of course, He rose from the dead. Proportion/Extent of suffering. The details of His suffering Jesus told. It seemed more detailed than any other time that Jesus ever spoke about this. In 2 Corinthians 1:5 it mentions the sufferings of Christ.

In Philippians 3:10, the fellowship of His sufferings. In 1 Peter 1:11, the sufferings. In 1 Peter 4:13, the sufferings.

Luke 24:26, “suffered many things.”

Hebrews 2:10, His salvation was made perfect through sufferings.

We can conclude that it was not just one-dimensional suffering, that the proportion of His suffering was beyond anything. According to Josephus in one account of three men that were crucified: “They were left there until such a time as they should have been dead and taken down. Two of them lived, one died.”

Which is to say that crucifixion in and of itself did not necessarily kill everybody. In fact, there is a record even beyond those three of many who lived through crucifixion. That is why they scourge those that they especially wanted to die, because the tremendous loss of blood, exposure of the internal organs, and all the pain involved in that would speed up and make secure the death reality in crucifixion.

But there was much more to the suffering of Christ than just the nails on the cross. The body shock system has a way to deal with that kind of trauma. Isaiah 53 clearly revealed many facets of His suffering.

Isaiah 53:2, For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.

The suffering of being ugly, the suffering of being rejected, the suffering of no form, no comeliness, people turning away. V 3, He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

So ugly. There is a rejection kind of suffering. The suffering of sorrow, the suffering of grief, the despising, the lack of esteem, regard, dignity, or respect. So, He was suffering the internal pain of knowing you are ugly and having people gaping at you in your ugliness.

The suffering of being despised, rejected, filled with sorrow and grief, and getting no esteem and no respect. This is not one who’s ever known this until the incarnation, and one who never was worthy of it. V 4, Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.

Sometimes we suffer as much when we carry the pain of someone else as we do with our own.

God smash His fist of wrath against Jesus. Blows from God where we find Him crying out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” V 5, But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

It is more physical and having stripes against the body, the suffering of physical pain, as well as inherent in that the wound of transgression, the bruise of iniquity, and feeling the chastening of God to accomplish peace for someone else.

V 6, All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. We see Him here lonely. He is all alone, bearing all the sins of all the world. V 7, He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.

Suffering of oppression, affliction, and silence. He can’t even speak. He can’t even defend Himself.

He can’t push them away and say that I Am the Son of God. He must suffer in absolute silence. He must keep His mouth closed. The suffering of knowing you are right, just, holy, pure, and good, and not being able to say it.

The suffering of prison. The suffering of a false judgment. V 8, He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.

He was cut off from the land of the living. The suffering of being stricken by God to bear sin, burial and being counted as a common criminal. The suffering of knowing that you hadn’t done anything, and you didn’t deserve any of this. Then the suffering of knowing it pleased God to do this to you, to put you to grief.

V 11-12, He shall see the labour of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He

was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors. Just overwhelming to conceive of the proportion of the suffering of our Lord. This is what was in His heart this day as He went up the hill to Jerusalem.

1. The suffering of disloyalty. When Jesus talks about being handed over to the chief priests, He is suffering the pain of disloyalty. He suffered all of this in anticipation. Because He knew it was going to happen, He could suffer the pain even now.

Psalm 41:9, Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, Who ate my bread, Has lifted up his heel against me.

The one He loved, walked talked love intimacy, care, and trust, He was betrayed by Judas. Juda was not only betrayed but betrayed with a kiss. The suffering of betrayal, the overwhelming suffering when someone close to you violates that intimacy and seeks to destroy you.

The ugly sin, the deep pain of being betrayed by a friend.

2. The suffering of rejection. He was turned over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they condemned Him to death.

John 1:11, He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. Jesus wept over Jerusalem.

Matthew 23:37, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

They just rejected Him.

Isaiah 53:3, He is despised and rejected by men,

Psalms 118:22, The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. Jesus loved His own people, those that He worked with and healed and taught, they rejected Him. The heartbreak is enough to crush you. Jesus has been betrayed by a friend and rejected by His own people. Not only is He rejected by men also rejected by God.

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Matthew 26:56, Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled. He didn’t have anybody. Rejected by the people, Rejected by the disciples, Rejected by God. Disloyalty and rejection. 3. The suffering of humiliation. “They mocked Him.” Once He got into the hands of the Pagans, they mocked Him.

They pulled at His beard. They crammed a crown of thorns on His head. They stuck a reed in His hand, put a robe on Him. Mocking Him saying, “You are a king.” They had spit on His face. They mocked Him and they scorned Him, they ridiculed Him.

Finally, they nailed Him naked before the whole world. Pain for the soul, not the body. The lovely, glorious, beautiful, sinless Son of God is humiliated, who should be exalted.

He was embarrassed. He was ridiculed.

1 Peter 2:23, who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. 4. The pain of unjust guilt.

They scourged Him and crucified Him. The reason they did that was because they had condemned Him. Jesus had to accept the responsibility for sin that He never committed. All the guilt of all the people that ever lived was put on Him.

Can’t imagine any pain or suffering more terrible than to be accused of a crime with a death penalty, and you knew you didn’t do it. The pain of betrayal, The pain of rejection, The pain of humiliation, and The pain of unjust guilt.

if you never got nailed to anything, would be enough to kill you. 5. The pain of injury.

Jesus points it up: the scourge. He is referring that He will suffer physically. Scourging was a horrible thing. 40 lashes were the Jewish as well as Romans punishment. The Jews always stopped one short, because they didn’t want to break the law, so they hit 39 and then stopped.

The traditional way, the Romans did it with metal and bone in the end of these three leather thongs. 13 lashes across the chest, 13 on lashes each of the two shoulders. It usually took two men to do it, because one wasn’t strong enough to continue the whipping at the pace they wanted it.

They would tie the hands to a post, so the body slumped; and they had to turn it around and take care of the chest, turn it around and take care of the back. The organs would be exposed, the bleeding would be profuse, and many people would die.

He suffered tremendous physical pain.

How did Jesus’ die? Not by the nails in His hands. Not by the spear, it didn’t go in till He was already dead.

Not by the crown of thorns killed Him. But by the suffocating of His organs is the physiological reason that He died. It was the cumulative grief, anxiety, pain, and suffering that all of that brought upon Him that killed Him.

The greatest suffering is not physical but the soul. The proportions of Christ’s suffering by Isaiah 53 is trying to tell us, by almost to a point of being criticized from the literary standpoint. The Holy Spirit to give us a little bit of an understanding of how wide, broad, and vast the degree of His suffering was.

The suffering that comes when you need somebody and they aren’t there, when you need somebody and they are not responsive, when they could care less about your pain because they are so involved in their own glory. “The third day He shall rise again.”

Suffering’s not the end. Those people that say Jesus’ whole revolution ended in a grave are wrong. He rose out of that grave three days later.

Psalm 16:10, For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.

God would never leave His soul in the grave. Jesus burst out of that grave, and is alive to this very day, and that is the power over His sufferings. Bless God for that.

Conclusion

How could they miss that? How could they not want to ask about that? They must have thought about death. They must have thought about dying and the future.

What would keep them from asking about that? He told them He had the power over His sufferings.

Matthew 20:20-21, Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from Him. 21 And He said to her, “What do you wish?” She said to Him, “Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom.” Jesus answered and said that you don’t even know what you’re asking.

How did they react? They didn’t come and say, “Lord, tell us more about the suffering. Tell us more about redemption. Tell us more about the ransom. Tell us more about the fact that You are the lamb. Tell us about Your resurrection.

No, they came with their mother and asked if we wanted to be on the right, and we wanted to be on the left. They didn’t even get the message. They wanted a king; they kept missing the fact they needed a Saviour. Even today the same with people.

They don’t mind Jesus at Christmas. They don’t mind Him a little baby in a manger. They don’t mind Him, a nice little guy with little children around His lap. They don’t even mind Him too much as a king. It is the saviour they can’t handle.

Israel today is in the same situation. It’s the suffering that they won’t accept.

1 Peter 3:18, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,

When Adam and Eve sinned, they were separated.

What reconciled them? Sacrifice. When God ordained the elaborate sacrificial system in Israel, He was saying, “You don’t come to Me unless you come by means of a sacrifice.” So, Jesus had to be offered the just, that is Him, for the unjust, that is us. He might bring us to God.